ROTMG TRILOGY
by Candylantis
Summary: Special Thanks to Chrono (a Rotmg Username) who was the original poster and creator, and I've been playing Rotmg since February 7, 2015 and i strongly recommend this game and also while this may not be entirely accurate according to the game...Enjoy! Also;Plz Follow my google plus and can also use to ask questions, Rotmg Sequel is also here with Rotmg Finale following soon!
1. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL I

Realm of the Mad God Trilogy ROTMG NOVEL ESP 1

 _You are a child of this realm._ _  
Eternally blinded by ignorant truths,  
Oblivious to the peripheral existence  
Untold from this dreamless cycle.  
…You are a child of this realm._

"…Life."

The girl resting upon the bed suddenly opened up her eyes and nearly jumped to her feet. She looked at her surroundings and saw nothing familiar of this room; it was made of wood (including the walls and ceiling), and a flame-lit candle rested on the desk beside her bed. Placed upon the walls were various housework tools, including rakes and shovels and brooms; there was a sack of hay lying beside the door. To the right of her bed was a small, low-roofed corner where a window resided directly above her head.

"Hello," said a voice that came from nearby. The girl turned her head to see the door to this room open, and in came a tall woman with curly brown hair and gray eyes; she was dressed in blue robes.

"What is your name?" the woman asked.

The girl lying upon the bed shuddered. "I…I don't know," she answered. "I can't remember anything." She closed her eyes, and began to think back to…whatever had happened before she woke up inside this strange room. Fragments of memories pieced themselves together to form various (and random) trains of thoughts, of old homes and familiar neighborhoods and a somewhat distant recollection of people that seemed, in the past, to be like friends.

She felt in her head a strange, swollen blackness; something about her memory was missing. A part of the past had been taken away from her, yet this past felt so distant, so unconscious, that it seemed almost like…it had taken place in some other form of reality. Nothing of what she was able to recall appeared in a clear and coherent manner; but eventually she became aware of a word, some word that she had been called throughout her whole life. It was…what was it the woman asked for again? Ah, yes. A name.

"Oh, sorry," the girl said. "My name…its Claire."

"Claire," the old woman responded. "I'm Kathleen. Nice to meet you." She stretched out her hand, and Claire nervously shook it.

"Where am I?" Claire asked. "And why can't I remember…anything?"

"Welcome to the Realm," Kathleen said, nodding her head.

"The Realm? What?"

"You don't know what the Realm is?" Kathleen responded. She smiled and began to back away from Claire. "Then you will find out soon enough." She slowly walked towards the door leading out of the room.

"Wait!" Claire yelled. "Where are you going?"

"To the outside, where the Realm is. I hope to see you again!"

Claire sat upon the bed with a confused look upon her face. _What was that all about? Who was that woman? And…why can't I remember anything? Do I have amnesia? What happened to me? And…what is this 'Realm' thing?_

She closed her eyes and let her body fall gently back upon the soft bed. Claire began trying to piece back her old memories again, attempting to recall something, anything that would give her an answer to the questions that plagued her head. She tried to think about what happened before she woke up in this room, but could not remember a single thing; the only emotion that she felt was a blackness, an emptiness of some sort taking over her mind. And it began by consuming what remained of those vague thoughts and memories of past consciences, taking them away from her minds grasp just when she thought that they would fall in place. Those words, those people, those residing in familiarity — they seemed to disappear along with this emotion, leaving nothing behind but emptiness, and her mind felt like a hollow shell.

With a sigh, Claire stood up from the bed and stretched her tired body. _Just…who am I?_ She thought before walking across the room towards the door. Maybe if I can talk to that Kathleen again, then perhaps I could get some answers…

She cautiously left the room and found herself standing in a kitchen of some sorts. To her right there was a dining table, laden with empty plates of food — though there was still one tray which contained some bread and a small bowl of soup. Claire suddenly realized how hungry she was — she must've been asleep in that room for days — and immediately began wolfing down the food that was on this tray. While she ate, she heard a door open — it seemed to come from 'outside' this house — and saw Kathleen come back into this room.

"Hello, Claire," Kathleen said. "Yes, the food is for you. Eat as much as you want. I have lots more if you're very hungry."

Obviously, a slice of bread and a bowl of soup was not enough to satisfy Claire's hunger; she immediately disregarded her caution and asked Kathleen to give her some more food.

"Thank you for the food," Claire said as Kathleen brought to her an egg sandwich, an apple pie, a salad, and some orange juice. "But I need to know what is going on. Why can't I remember anything? And…what am I doing here, inside your house — I assume?"

"You are inside the Realm," Kathleen replied. "This is the world of the Mad God. It's your new home now."

 _Mad…God? What?_ Claire thought to herself. "Excuse me, but what are you talking about?"

"I mean exactly what I say. Go outside, when you are done eating your breakfast, and ask anyone whom you meet."

"Why can't you just explain it to me, though?" Claire asked. "Like, how did I get here? Is this another planet or something?"

Kathleen looked at Claire and smiled. "You are in this Realm because the Mad God willed it. There is no more, nor less that can I say to that. The Mad God is an immortal being whom we call Oryx, though his true name is unknown to all."

"God!? What God?" Claire responded a bit more frantically this time. "I don't believe what you're saying."

"Believe what you want. But I know that what I say is absolute truth, and you cannot deny it."

Claire closed her eyes and leaned her head back. _This Kathleen sure is a strange woman. She's providing me with all this food, as if I was some guest in her house…yet, I have no idea how I ended up here! Did a 'God' really transport me into his…Realm? Where is this Realm, anyways? Is it another world or something?_

"Okay," Claire said after calming down a bit, "What about my past? Why can't I remember it?"

"I can't answer that…" Kathleen replied. "Your past is your own business."

"Well, where did you find me? And what am I doing in your house?"

"Even if I told you, would it matter? How can you be sure of anything that happens while you're unconscious?"

 _Huh!? What is she talking about now?_

Kathleen smiled at Claire once again. "The Realm may seem a strange place to you…if you're new here, that is. Take some time to explore it; become accustomed to the ways of this world. I shall be departing soon, and because I have to greet so many other new people, it is not likely that we'll meet again."

"'Greet other people?' What do you mean by that?" Claire responded.

"Nothing much, really." Kathleen walked into another room of her house, and came back a few seconds later with a short wooden bow, a quiver of red-painted arrows, as well as a small gray Trap-stone.

"Here are your weapons," Kathleen said. "Use them well, Huntress."

Claire stared at Kathleen strangely, as if the woman before her had gone mad. "…What!?"

"Good luck!" Kathleen responded, before leaving the house again.

Once more, Claire sat in silence, attempting to contemplate and make some sense out of all that had happened to her since she woke up. _Just what am I doing here, in this place called the 'Realm'!? Why did Kathleen give me these weapons? I can't fight at all! What AM I going to fight?_

She stood up, after finishing her sandwich and took the Shortbow and the arrows into her hands. _Okay…am I supposed to go out and hunt some animals with this, or something?_ She slung the pouch of arrows across her back and gripped the bow tightly. _What IS "outside", anyways? Maybe now I'll be able to see the Realm in its entirety…_

Claire made for the door (that Kathleen had exited the house through) and opened it; this led to the front porch of her house. She stepped outside and was immediately greeted with some of the oldest and most unfamiliar of town-like scenery.

She walked down a street and observed the houses that were built in this town. They were not actually 'houses' (or at least not in the same way that one would call a personal dwelling a house); more like structures built into the very landscape of the town itself, and this 'landscape' was not of cobble streets, or of nature or dirt or soil or grass; it was a lay of solid white brick stones, so intertwined together that the town appeared to be made out of ice. And the dwellings of everyone were like doors, holes and porches — as well as roofs and ceilings — that had been carved into this very 'ice' itself, so that everyone's houses were actually _built_ into the town, and not just a part of it.

Aside from this alien scenery, a few things remained the same. Not unlike a town taken from a medieval setting, the streets were lined with markets selling strange foods — meats of creatures Claire had never seen before, as well as very exotic fruits and vegetables — and also crates, wagons, and carriages led by beasts resembling black oxen (instead of horses). A few familiar-looking trees, of oak and birch and spruce, had been planted along the roads, and the skies were bright with a habitual sun rising from the eastern horizon. All this somewhat reminded Claire of the world she had come from, the world of her lost and distant past that existed outside of this realm…

And yes, indeed, Claire now accepted that she was in another world, though it was a bit difficult to believe; yet at the same time it was clearly possible, since Claire did not remember what world she had even _come from_. She was still not too sure who the Mad God was, or his intent — or of her past and how she got here — but now, she was beginning to understand the Realm just a little better.

About fifteen minutes later, Claire wandered into the town square, a small tree-filled garden that was surrounded by four fountains; they each flowed into small, lotus-covered ponds. There were a lot of people gathered here, specifically around a large post board that stood at the center of the garden. Some of these people appeared just as confused as she was; she noticed that they mostly tried to stay away from the rest of the crowd (and pretended that they were minding their own business). Claire approached one of them, a boy about the same age as her; he had round green eyes and long brown hair, as well as a wide forehead and hollow cheekbones. He currently carried a small metal stick resembling a wand in his hands, and wore bright orange robes.

"Hello," Claire said as she approached this boy. He immediately turned to look at her and waved.

"Hello," he replied. "Who are you?"

"My name is Claire."

"I'm Aaron."

"Hello, Aaron," Claire said as she shook the boy's hand. Looking into his eyes, she could see that he seemed a bit shy and confused, as if he had no idea what was going on inside this world. _Just like myself, he probably doesn't know why he was taken into the Realm,_ Claire thought. _I do hope that I look a bit more experienced than he is, though._

"Hello, Claire," Aaron replied. "Do you need help with something?"

"No…not really. Though I must admit that I am new to the Realm; I just woke up inside this strange world about two hours ago. What about you?"

Immediately the expression on the boy's face changed, and he became more hopeful. "Really!?" Aaron replied. "Me too, actually. Though I've been here for one day already…but I hardly understand what I'm doing inside this Realm."

 _Oh, dammit…so he is still a bit more experienced than I am,_ Claire thought. _Regardless, since we're both new, I hope that we can become friends._

"Do you know anything about the Realm in general, though?" Claire asked. "I'm terribly confused about what I'm supposed to do in this world."

"I don't know much, either," Aaron responded. "But apparently, the Mad God Oryx transported us into his Realm to serve as food for his minions. Obviously we don't want that, so all we do here is fight and try to kill as many monsters as possible."

Claire frowned. _That sounds quite dangerous,_ she thought. _I never knew that there could be monsters inside this world._

Aaron started walking towards the poster board that was located at the center of the town's garden. "Here, I'll show you the map of this Realm," he said. "It's important to know where we're going if we decide to head on a journey."

Claire followed Aaron, pushing her way past the crowds of people that were amassing around the exact same poster board. Eventually, she made her way to the front of the group, where she was able to see the map.

"Here we are, at a town called Nexus," Aaron said, pointing to the center of the map. "It's quite small, of course, compared to the rest of this Realm. This is a huge world."

Claire nodded; she continued to listen as Aaron spoke, telling her of every other place that existed inside the Realm.

"This town is bordered by mountains to the north and to the east; one of its exits leads to the West Darylin Plains, which I heard is where a lot of this Realms' beginners start their journeys off since the monsters there aren't very strong. If you head further west of those plains, you'll reach Ranorn Forest, which is the only passage that we can take to the Eoryun Highlands beyond. Located to the south of the plains are the great Nidel Mountains, and I hear it's full of dangerous monsters — so we should best avoid that place for now. At the Eoryun Highlands, if you go further west you'll reach a town called Dale's Port, located right beside the Ocean; if you head north, you'll find a place called the Blue Wood, which is another one of this Realm's forests. Past that is the Lefran Snow Plains, situated at the base of the massive Northern Mountains; there's another town there, too, called Colberth."

"You seem to know a lot about this Realm," Claire replied. "Did you study this map all day yesterday?"

"Yeah. I'm good at memorizing places and directions, actually. Now, to continue: if you manage to cross the Nidel Mountains, then you'll arrive upon the Plateau Fields, which leads to another port town — the Village of Tianris — located beside the southern ocean. Back to Nexus; another exit out of this town leads to the South Darylin Plains, which also borders the ocean. From there, if you head west, you'll reach the Haragon Desert, and past that is the Plateau Fields also — though it's bordered by the Nidel Mountains to the north. If you head east, you'll arrive at the Laviel Hills, and there you'll find a castle: the kingdom of Fedrinas."

"There's a kingdom inside this realm?"

"Yes. It's located on the border between the lowlands and the Laviel, Hills, actually."

"What's beyond that, then?"

"Well, north of Laviel Hills is the Thamasan Forest, which leads to the ocean east of the Lefran Snow Plains; further east of the hills leads into the lowlands, where the Maduin Swamp is located. And at the far eastern corner of the world, past the swamp and the forest, is Amerdoth, the Shadow-lands."

"Doesn't sound like a very pleasant place. Is it where the Mad God resides?"

"I'm not very sure, but let's definitely avoid that place for now."

They stepped back from the map to let the other people (who had been crowding around them) see the poster board.

"Thanks for all that information about this world," Claire replied. "But I never expected to feel so…'fantasized,' if you know what I mean. It's like we're in some kind of a world stuck a thousand years back in the past. There are only four towns — if I can remember correctly — inside this Realm; all else is wilderness."

"I know; it's strange," Aaron replied. "But there's no denying it now that we're definitely in some other world; the Realm of the Mad God."

"Can't we just refuse to fight and settle down to live inside a town, or something?"

Aaron shook his head. "This world is plagued with dangerous and very powerful monsters. If we all stopped fighting, then every person inside this realm would become food for Oryx's minions. To earn a living, we _have_ to go fight and kill as many monsters as possible; it's also the only way for us to get money."

"Oh, that's right…I recall passing by a few markets on my way to the town square. That's strange though — why do we need money to buy food and stuff like that if all we're doing is killing monsters all day?"

"Actually…I didn't exactly mean 'currency' when I said money. We buy our daily supplies by trading the spoils of battle that we acquire from battles out in the Realm. Most monsters will drop us something useful when we kill them — or, at least that's what I heard — like their weapons or some armor, and then we can sell them for food at the local markets."

Claire nodded. "I see. That's an interesting economy; a system of consumption based on one's worth in battle. That puts a lot of pressure upon our…well, _fighting_ skills instead of our knowledge or education."

"It makes sense, though," Aaron replied. "Our purpose inside this Realm is to get rid of all these monsters the Mad God sends after us; it's the only way we could possibly live."

Aaron walked back towards where he had been sitting before, underneath a tall elm tree of the town square's garden. There was a backpack there — a large brown bag — and inside was some food, as well as various other supplies such as potions, bottles of water, medical aid, etc.

"Some nice person gave this to me the other day," Aaron said, smiling shyly at Claire. "It's probably enough to last both of us a week on our journey, though we'd have to conserve some of our food. Do you want to come with me?"

"Sure. Why not?" Claire replied. "We're both new to this realm, right? So let's work together and see what we can make for ourselves in this world."

"Alright, then. Where shall we go, first?"

"This is quite a large town," Claire said. "But there's not much that's interesting for us to see. I think we should head out into the Realm, now."

"Really? There are monsters everywhere, though! Maybe we should find ourselves another companion."

Claire nodded. "Perhaps you're right. Though that's kind of awkward, going up to someone and asking if they would like to come with you on a journey."

Aaron shook his head. "No, not in this world. That's perfectly normal. Most people would not dare go out into the Realm on their own, anyways. And there's plenty of new people like us in this town, too."

Claire observed the crowd of people still amassing around the poster board, trying to get a look at the map of the Realm. This time, she didn't seen anyone who might appear "new" to her; they were all very loud and confident.

"No…let's just go out on our own for the first few days. I'm sure we'll meet up with some other people that'll join us on our journey out in the Realm, anyways."

"Huh…okay," Aaron replied. He reached down into his backpack and took out a tattered brown scroll; he unrolled it and the paper revealed another map.

"It's the exact same map as the one on the poster board," Aaron said. "But it's old and faded, and obviously not as clear or descriptive as the central map of the Realm. We'll use it as a simple guide when we're out on our journey for now. Where should we head?"

"Didn't you say that most 'beginners' go to the West Darylin Plains?" Claire responded. "Let's head there to start on our journey. It's not far away, is it?"

"No, not at all. Only about an hour's walk. Let's go."

Claire nodded, and they began on their way.

 _Well, looks like I've made a decent friend in just the first few hours of my journey inside this Realm,_ Claire thought. _Maybe this world isn't so bad after all._ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she began walking more slowly. _I'm still rather confused though, about my past or why I'm here. What am I doing inside this realm, and why can't I remember anything of my life before I came into this world?_

Claire looked at Aaron and sighed. _I don't think it's just me, though. Maybe the Mad God erased all of our memories when he transported us into his Realm. Maybe he wants to make the Realm our only memory, so that we'll stay here forever…_

She clenched her hands into a fist and gripped the folds of her red huntress shirt. _I won't allow it,_ she thought. _I'll find the Mad God — it'll happen one day, I bet — and give him a piece of my mind. In the meantime, I'll try to prove myself as one of the worthiest fighters inside this realm._

(Special Thanks to Chrono (a Rotmg Username) who was the original poster and creator)


	2. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL II

**RotMG Novel: Chapter II**

At noon that day, Claire and Aaron left the town behind and arrived upon the Darylin Plains. It was a vast expanse of lush grassland, wide and boundless, that extended many scores of miles across the immense vistas of the Realm; the place was bordered by mountains to the south, and the ocean and the highlands to the west. Here the grass grew tall and limitless, and trees — mostly of a deciduous nature, such as oaks, maples, and elms — dotted the diverse rolling landscapes of the plains. There was a cool breeze in the air that day, so it was not overwhelmingly hot.

"Here we reach the Realm's wilderness," Aaron said as they set out to explore this world, heading steadily westwards from town. "I don't claim to know much about the Realm outside of the Nexus, but I do believe that there are lots of dangerous monsters prowling around everywhere."

"Then we had better tread cautiously," Claire responded. "Though I currently don't see any monsters right now."

"They're out there, though."

The two began heading up a hill, and when they reached the top they were able to acquire a better view of the plains below. To the south there was a river that came out of a rocky valley; northwards, some forests located below a wide expanse of cliffs. There were a few travelers exploring the place, but — to Claire's dismay — a far greater number of monsters roamed about. Some of them looked rather humanoid, such as the green-clothed elf archers and warriors; wandering around in groups were several mean-looking dwarfs, as well as a few small hobbits and goblins; by far the largest quantity of enemies, however, were pirates (though they are technically bandits). These rogues were dressed in red-and-brown clothing and usually roamed about in groups; most bore swords, bows, staffs, or knives as weapons.

"They don't all look like monsters…" Claire said after observing these creatures for a while.

"I heard that they're actually quite vicious. The elves and the dwarves and the pirates won't hesitate to kill and make you their dinner at a first glance."

"Do I have to kill them, though?"

"I'm not sure…" Aaron replied. "Killing monsters and acquiring their 'loot' is the only way we can survive inside this Realm. And we only have enough food for about a week, so we had better start scavenging as much equipment as possible."

"That feels so weird, though; having to kill in order to survive…"

"What do you mean?" They began making their way down the hill and towards the river.

"I don't claim to remember much about my past before entering this realm, but I do recall living a more… _peaceful_ life, I would say. Which is weird, because I have no idea who I am, or even what world I came from…"

Aaron nodded. "Me too. I don't think anyone in the Realm remembers their past at all. I'm definitely new to the whole idea of 'killing for survival', too, but I know that it's a necessity."

"A necessity? Does it have to be that way?" Claire asked.

"I believe so. The Realm is overrun with monsters; someone must go out and slay them all, or we'll become mere food for Oryx's minions."

A cool wind blew through the plains, rustling the tall grass as it swirled — like a sea of green waves — about their feet; there came a buzzing noise in the air, loud and piercing, which reminded Claire of some distant (and forgotten) summer days. These cricket sounds brought to Claire a few vivid memories, appearing suddenly through her mind, of how life was like before she woke up inside the Realm — but they were instantly gone.

"There must be something people do inside this Realm, other than killing monsters…" Claire said. "It's not our human nature to enjoy savagery…is it? Though who am I to speak of human nature, if I can't even remember myself?"

"You're thinking of this too deeply…" Aaron responded. "And I'm new to the Realm too, so I don't claim to understand the 'nature' of this world any more than you do."

"Well, then. Where should we go first?"

They stopped at the edge of a wildflower meadow; the land seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction around them, and the horizon was comprised of tall and distant mountains: a barrier against the endless reaches of the sky.

"Let's just keep going west," Aaron said. "We'll reach a place called Ranorn Forest soon. Lots of travelers go there to hunt for valuable loot."

There was suddenly a hissing sound in the air; multiple hissing sounds in fact. It seemed to be coming from below the grass.

"What's that?" Claire asked as she observed for any signs of movement about her feet.

"Snakes, obviously. A common enemy out on these tame plains."

"'Tame?' The idea of having to fend off snakes doesn't seem very 'tame' to me!"

"Neither do I. But they aren't poisonous — I heard that poison doesn't exist in the Realm — and it's at least better than fighting against all the other enemies!"

Claire raised her Trap-stone that she had been keeping in her pocket since that morning when Kathleen gave it to her; on instinct, she suddenly threw it to the ground. Immediately a fountain of magical dust exploded into the air, and all of the snakes around her — those who had fallen into this Trap — were instantly slain. Their bodies appeared bleeding and mangled as they became exposed beneath the grass.

 _Amazing…I never thought such a simple stone could do that. Perhaps it's a magical ability, unique to myself?_

"That might've been a bit overkill," Aaron said. "Use your magic too much, and you'll become worn out very soon. Stick to your bow and arrows from now on, okay?"

Claire nodded. "I'm surprised, though, that I could even use magic at all. This Realm is just full of surprises, isn't it?"

Not longer after passing through the meadow, the two chanced upon some more prowling enemies. This time, they were pirates; small little rogue-like fiends with hardly humanoid forms (their faces were deformed) and who attacked them viciously on sight.

"They shouldn't be too hard to kill," Aaron said as he raised his wand.

Claire notched an arrow to her bow, and then shot it at the first pirate; this felt strange to her, for she had never tried archery before (or did not remember doing so), and yet suddenly these battle skills appeared to her as naturally as breathing. The arrow struck the first pirate through his stomach, and he fell dead instantly to the ground.

"They go down quite easily, don't they?" Aaron commented. He blasted another rogue with a ball of fire from his priest's wand, incinerating the creature into ashes.

Claire's hands trembled as she prepared to shoot the next pirate down with a second arrow. "It does put a dent on your conscience, though!" She said nervously. "Monster or not, I'm not comfortable with killing things so blatantly…"

 _Except that Pirate to your left is coming right at you with those two knives in his hands! Survival of the fittest, Claire, survival of the fittest!_

Obeying that voice in her head, Claire unleashed several more volleys of arrows — almost instinctively — upon her enemies. Aaron had been right — these were very easy creatures to kill — and soon a pile of dead bodies lay strewn about on the bloodied field around them.

"Damn, that was easy," Claire said distastefully after the battle, as if trying to mock her own competence. "I almost feel somewhat sorry for those pirates, charging at us like idiots — without care for their own safety."

"At the same time, we're getting more bloodthirsty with experience…" Aaron added. "It may just be another mental effect of being inside this realm. Oryx's minions are…well, I'd say, somewhat stupid. They're obviously brutal savages who give virtually no thought to their own safety when they charge at us. Obviously, we can only deliver to them exactly what they want — death."

"I wish there was some other way. But…though they look like humans, these creatures are just monsters, after all. I don't think they'll listen to us if we try to talk them out of fighting…"

Aaron bent down beside a pirate and scavenged two bottles out from his belt-pouch: one was a red healing potion, the other a purple potion of magic-recovery. "Look!" Aaron said. "Our first loot of the day."

Claire turned around. _Now I feel like a pillager,_ she thought, _going around killing and stealing from enemies. Well, if Aaron doesn't mind — though I'm sure that he secretly does — then I shouldn't care too much about it, either. After all, in this realm, killing is a necessity for survival, right?_

They continued exploring more of the plains; in the afternoon they departed southwards, down a hill and towards the river that came out of the valley earlier. A group of other travelers were currently meeting at this spot, talking about their battle-stories as well as exchanging loot with each other.

As they approached the river, there came suddenly — from out behind some trees — two small, strange, gelatinous cube-shaped enemies. One of them was purple, the other red.

"Huh?" Claire said as he saw these bizarre life forms approach her. "What are these cubes?"

"Oh…they're like the spawn of the devil," Aaron responded contemptuously, much to Claire's surprise. "Don't be deceived by their 'innocent' appearance. They want nothing but to kill and eat you!"

One of the cubes suddenly blasted out a magical ball of energy — from its gelatinous, jelly-like form — which struck Claire upon her left knee. It did not hurt much, but it did make her wince, as if some claw had pinched her — and she backed away from the enemy. Without a second though, two arrows flew from Claire's bow, pinning the two cubes to the ground.

"Damned little critters," Claire said after the battle; even she herself was surprised by how quickly she had reacted to the approach of enemies by sending them swift, merciless death.

"I guess you just really hate cubes, now," Aaron stated.

They made their way to the gathering of travelers beside the river. Most of them were busying themselves with talking and trading, save for one green-armored rogue who was sitting alone on the shores of the river.

"Hey!" Aaron cried as they approached the rogue. "Do you know what's going on around here?"

The rogue stood up and waved to them as he saw the approach of some fellow travelers. "Hello," he said to them in a weak and almost nervous voice. "I came to this gathering to look for some help, actually."

"For what?"

"There's a Deathmage nearby to those mountains over there. I accidentally chanced upon him, and we did battle…but I lose, and I had to escape. My friend, however, was not so lucky."

Aaron lowered his head and sighed. "I'm sorry," he replied. "You want us to help kill this Deathmage, don't you?"

The rogue nodded. "Not today, though. The mountains are too far away — and unless you're very strong, it's quite daft to try and take on a Deathmage at night. We wait until tomorrow morning."

Claire approached the Rogue. "I'm sorry about your friend, too," she said.

The rogue closed his eyes and sighed. "We're both new to this Realm, and I hardly knew him. I guess that's how things work in this Realm. People come and go faster than you can remember them."

* * *

That night, they sat at the edge of that river, upon the summit of a small hill beside a tall oak tree.

"What's…a Deathmage?" Claire asked Aaron after they finished eating their dinner.

"Deathmages? Oh, it's a bit hard to explain…"

They were sitting around a small bonfire, under the veil of the glittering night skies; a full white moon was out, surrounded by luminous stars.

"Tell me. I want to know."

"Oryx has certain minions that rank higher above others. Deathmages are an example…not because they are monsters, but because they have _become monsters_."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's a long story. From what I've heard, there exists — in the far west, upon the Eoryun Highlands — the kingdom of some powerful creature called a Ghost King. This creature supposedly fathoms the secrets to immortality, and so many travelers have tried to sneak into his treasury and steal his scrolls of necromantic power. Those who are successful in mimicking his spells of darkness become benevolent wizards — though not exactly immortal ones — called Necromancers. Those who fail transform into Deathmages, and they are loathed by the living. Thus do why most Deathmages hang around graveyards, where they can feed upon the souls of undead creatures."

 _Oh, great. I thought I'd be spared of undead lore inside this Realm, but…_

"Thanks for your information," Claire told Aaron. She closed her eyes and lay her head down upon the soft grass. _What a tiring day it's been today,_ she thought. _I killed a lot of monsters…though I don't feel anything on my conscience at all, for some reason. Maybe it's because of the effects of this Realm. Or maybe humans really DO endorse savagery when it's for survival purposes…_

She looked up at the sky and saw the bright white moon of the Realm, very large and almost completely full that night. She listened to the soft chirping of the crickets, and the cool breeze rustling the lush grass that she slept upon, and was lured to sleep by the tranquil sounds of flowing water from the nearby river.

* * *

At dawn the next morning, the group woke up and prepared to depart again on their journey. Today they were heading towards the vast Nidel Mountains located south of the plains (with the Rogue) to find and slay the Deathmage that dwelt there.

"The Nidel Mountains…if I remember correctly, didn't you tell me yesterday that that place was full of dangerous monsters?" Claire asked Aaron during breakfast.

"We're only going to make towards the base of those mountains; we're not actually leaving the Darylin Plains behind. Plus, Deathmages aren't known to dwell in places that are inhabited by powerful monsters; they are not amongst the strongest of Oryx's minions."

Claire had hardly any appetite for food that morning. _Today is going to be my first big battle,_ she thought. _Yesterday was only training, since I really didn't get a chance to fight any tough monsters. I just hope that I'm prepared to take on the Deathmage…_

"Let's get going," the Rogue said as he approached Claire and Aaron. "If we make a steady pace, we'll reach the mountains by noon today. The sooner, the better — Deathmages are at their weakest during daylight hours."

He suddenly took out from his backpack a silver ring with a small Citrine-jewel embedded upon it.

"What's that?" Claire asked.

"It's a ring of Dexterity," the Rogue responded. "I found it off some monster that I killed the other day, but I have no need of this accessory. Here, I'll let you have it."

"Why, thank you," Claire said as she took the ring and equipped it onto her hand. Its magical powers, that of Dexterity, suddenly flowed into her mind, and Claire began to feel a slight enhancement in her hand-eye coordination.

"By the way…what's your name?" Claire asked suddenly. "We never even asked you about it yesterday."

"I am Jonathan," the rogue replied. "And you are?"

"Claire. And this is…Aaron," Claire said, pointing to her friend who was sitting beside her.

"Well then, we should begin our journey," the Rogue suggested, and he was off. Claire and Aaron followed after him.

Throughout the morning, the trio remained rather silent as they made their way towards the mountains. Claire was in quite an apprehensive mood; she did not like the idea of actually going on a 'quest' with the intent of slaying a specific monster. The task felt quite burdening to her; Claire would've rather preferred to have just remained on their journey, where she was free to do as she wished and suffered no distress from the anxious wait of a tough battle.

"Ummm, Jonathan…" Claire said to break the silence, "Do you know if we'll survive this battle with the Deathmage?"

"Can't say," the rogue responded. "They're not supposed to be too difficult. And we might not have to fight alone; other travelers of the Realm are constantly out looking for monsters to kill, and if we're lucky, some may stumble upon our destination to help us out with our quest."

"Oh, okay. Thanks for telling me that."

As they arrived closer to the mountains, the scenery upon the plains began to change and become drearier as well. At first, the grass became yellow and wilted, as if the soil there lacked nutrition; then the entire landscape became very barren and rocky. Claire soon realized that they were climbing up a hill located at the base of the Nidel Mountains; it led towards a small forest situated at the entrance of a tall canyon.

"Wait!" Jonathan (who had been leading the group) said, stopping dead in his tracks. "Hills like these are the perfect hunting grounds of some predatory goblins. I think I can hear footsteps nearby…"

"Goblins?" Claire asked. "Are they tough?"

"Not very. But we should best try and avoid an ambush with those sneaky creatures."

They made their way into the forest, which was made of mostly coniferous trees such as firs and spruce. Not long after they entered, the silence in the air was broken by the sounds of monstrous shrieks and yells; actually they were more like little chit-chats of excitement. Claire looked up and saw a few tiny green goblins — each no more than two or three feet tall — hiding up in the branches of several trees. Some were clothed in rags; others were armored and bore actual weapons such as knives or small axes.

"Shoot them down!" Jonathan yelled when he noticed them as well. "They're about the attack us!"

Claire did not hesitate to notch an arrow to her bow and let it fly at the first goblin that she saw; her shot struck the creature and it fell dead to the ground from the trees. The other goblins all cried out in terror, and then jumped down to attack with their tiny little weapons. Claire quickly threw her Trap-stone forward, causing a cloud of (lethal) magical dust to fly up into the air and block the goblins from reaching her.

"These little goblins aren't much for us to worry about," Aaron said as he waited for Claire to catch up with him. "It's the Goblin Mages that we should watch out for. Look! There's three up ahead."

Claire watched as Jonathan ran towards a red-caped goblin; he instantly decapitated the creature with the silver dagger that he held in his hands. The other goblins raised their staffs up into the air, and then unleashed a bolt of blue energy towards the Rogue; they struck Jonathan and he staggered back in pain.

Then Aaron shot two bolts of fire from his wand towards the Goblin Mage that was closest to him, incinerating the creature into dust. Not wanting to be useless, Claire notched another arrow to her bow and struck down the second goblin mage. As it fell to the ground, she noticed that it dropped something from beneath its red cloak.

"Look!" Claire yelled when she saw the creature drop a weapon. As ran towards its fallen body, she picked this object up and realized that it was a Crossbow; the weapon was a bit heavier than her current one, but it was also very durable, and obviously more powerful in battle than a Shortbow.

"And I found a ring for myself, too," Aaron said, approaching Claire after finishing the inspection of his own loot. "It's a Ring of Health, I believe. Quite useful for a healer like me."

Claire nodded. "Then we each have some new equipment, now," she said, almost sadly. _It feels strange, all this killing and looting that we're doing. Well, they ARE just monsters…_

After the battle, Claire and Aaron approached Jonathan, who had been resting by a small tree. "Are you hurt?" Aaron asked as he approached the Rogue. "I can heal you, if you like?"

"No, it's okay," Jonathan replied. "Goblin Mages aren't too powerful. I was just bruised by their spells, that's all. And of course, I can still fight."

"Then let's move on," Aaron suggested. "How much farther away until we find the Deathmage?"

"Not very. He supposedly dwells inside a graveyard located deep within this valley; only about a mile or so away, now."

 _This is it, then,_ Claire thought. _I'm almost there. My first "real" battle._

About an hour later, the group proceeded out of the forest and arrived at the entrance of the canyon where the Deathmage dwelt. Here, there were no trees, and the land was bare and rocky; as they entered the canyon they found themselves heading steadily down a narrow gorge located beside a river. There was a foul smell in the air which carried traces of sulfur and rot; instead of grass, strange mushroom-like plants and black-leaved bushes grew within this valley.

There suddenly came in the distance sounds of battle; of swords clashing and spells singing through the air, and even the familiar cry of human words.

"There's someone up ahead," Claire whispered to Aaron. "If we're lucky, then they might be strong, and will help us take out this Deathmage."

"We should hurry on, then," Aaron replied.

They ran ahead past the river and reached a small swamp located at the center of the gorge; it was surrounded by thick ash trees, which just barely veiled the site of the nearby graveyard. However, the obvious cries of battle easily gave away the location of the Deathmage; indeed, as the group arrived, three other travelers came running out from behind the trees. They were pursued by two gruesome-looking creatures: a pale, zombie-like corpse, as well as a skeleton wielding a sword forged of bone.

"Hey, watch out!" Aaron yelled. He quickly blasted the skeleton with a burst of fire from his wand, incinerating the creature into ash; Claire shot down the zombie with an arrow from her bow.

"What's going on around here?" Jonathan asked. "Are you fighting the Deathmage right now?"

"Yes," one of the travelers responded. She was a wizard who wielded an Avenger Staff and wore a Conjurer's Robe as well as a Greater Defense ring. Clearly, she seemed strong enough to take on the Deathmage all by herself. Her somewhat weaker allies included a warrior and another cleric.

"We're only running away because we were ambushed by surprise," the warrior said. "The Deathmage doesn't stand a chance against us. We'll go kill it right now."

"I'll help," Jonathan said. "Let's go."

Claire and Aaron followed after the four as they passed through the trees and entered the graveyard. Immediately Claire became frightened by the gruesome sight; all the gravestones had been unearthed and dead bodies — mainly skeletons — littered the swampy floor. The Deathmage was a dark-skinned creature with giant yellow eyes; it was dressed in black robes and wielded a small wooden staff.

"You'll become my undead slaves!" The Deathmage yelled as it summoned up ten skeletons from the floor to attack the party. Without hesitating, Claire threw her Trap-stone forward, and then backed away behind Jonathan; the Trap exploded upon contact with two skeletons, and their bodies were incinerated. Meanwhile, the wizard stepped forward and cast a spell, sending a wave of green fire towards her enemies and burning four of them into ashes.

"This shouldn't be too hard," Jonathan whispered as he unsheathed his weapon. "Damn him for killing my friend, though."

The Rogue charged at the Deathmage and attempted to stab the creature with his silver dagger. However, with another wave of its staff, four more bodies rose out of the ground and blocked off the Rogue's passage. The Warrior stepped forward and began slashing his way through all of the enemies; his sword, a Falchion, made quick work of the skeletons. Meanwhile, Claire loaded an arrow to her crossbow and shot it at the Deathmage; the creature was struck upon its shoulder and it backed away in pain.

"Let's just finish this…quickly," Aaron said; they all charged forward and began a relentless assault upon the Deathmage and its undead army. Their enemy stood no chance; eventually it was the wizard that dealt the killing blow to the Deathmage with a blast of magic from her staff. With a dying scream, the creature's body fell to the floor and disintegrated into ashes. As Claire expected, it left behind some loot in the form of a treasure chest; she opened it first and found herself some Minotaur Hide (which was a decent piece of armor). The others took potions, and Aaron equipped himself with a Student's robe.

"There's some stuff in this treasure chest that we don't need," Aaron commented after the battle. "A Ring of Vitality and some Blue Steel Mail."

"Let's take them anyways," Claire said. "Didn't you say that we earn a living in this Realm by selling our loot?"

"Alright, then," Aaron replied. "But the armor will be a bit heavy to carry around. Still, we should be able to manage it."

Now that the battle was over, Claire felt surprisingly relieved, and yet disappointed with herself. _That wasn't even difficult…_ she thought. _But it was only because I had five allies helping me. In the future, I have to train to become stronger, so that I can take on monsters by myself._

Aaron looked up at Claire. "Tired?" he said with a soft smile.

Claire shook her head. "No, I'm actually quite energetic," she said. "Let's continue on our journey. Where's Jonathan?"

"He left five minutes ago. Told me that he didn't care about the treasure chest, and that he was just happy he was able to avenge the death of his friend."

"Huh, that's strange…" Claire responded. "But, I thought we were friends…or, we should be, since we traveled together."

"Not in this realm, unfortunately," Aaron said sadly. "He only accompanied us since we agreed to help him on his quest. In the end, we're all on our own; when the deed's done, people usually part ways."

 _What could he mean by that?_ Claire thought. _Damn, he can be so uncaring sometimes._ "Aaron, are you saying that you're going to leave me one day, too?"

The boy shook his head. "Well, not right now, of course, since we're traveling together. Maybe later, somewhere in the distant future. But for now, let's work together."

"Alright…" Claire replied. _Still, I don't like the thought of that…having to leave friends behind in order to make sure that you survive by yourself._

 _…_ _What an uncaring world. Is this what necessity creates?_

"Hey," a voice suddenly said; the wizard who had fought with them earlier approached Claire from behind. She had dark wavy brown hair and grayish lidded eyes; a round face with a flat nose and a rather wide chin. "Are you two going to be leaving anytime soon?"

"Well, we don't really have a destination in mind," Claire responded.

"I'm Kira, by the way," the wizard said. "I've been looking for someone to travel with ever since I entered this realm. Ummm…"

"Yes, we'd love you to come with us!" Claire responded as enthusiastically. Maybe I was wrong, she thought to herself.

"What about those other two people you were traveling with?" Aaron asked. "Why did they leave you behind?"

"Oh…they have their own business to take care of," Kira replied. "And besides, I hardly knew them — we just happened to have met each other on our way to this graveyard."

"Alright, then — welcome to our team," Claire said. "We're both new to this Realm, by the way."

"Thanks," Kira replied. "I've only been in this world for about a week myself. And by the way, if you don't have a destination in mind, may I suggest heading west to Dale's Port?"

"Dale's Port?" Aaron said. "That's a bit far. We'll have to cross Ranorn Forest as well as the Eoryun Highlands; it'll take us at least three days."

"I know. That's why I wanted to travel with someone, so I won't have to make the entire journey alone."

"Well, we're only out here to make ourselves a living by killing some monsters," Claire said. "If Aaron doesn't object, then we'll agree to accompany you on this journey."

"I don't mind," Aaron stated. "The more people, the better. Let's get going, now."

 _Huh. What a change of heart,_ Claire thought. _Only about a minute ago he told me that "in the end, we're all on our own"; I don't believe it, though. Friends should be more trusting towards each other._

They began their journey westwards.


	3. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL III

**RotMG Novel: Chapter III**

At early morning the next day, the party stood at the entrance of Ranorn Forest; they had arrived out of the canyon and gone west of the plains the previous afternoon. While on their way to the forest, they ran into an encounter with a group of hunting elves; they were dressed in green and fairly resembled the humans of this realm, save for their savage nature. As soon as the elves had spotted the party, they immediately attacked; Kira was able to fend most of them off by herself with her powerful spells, though Claire did get struck by an arrow from one of the archers. Surprisingly, it did not hurt much; she had thought that perhaps it was another effect of being inside this realm, in which one's physical constitution became stronger so that they were more resistant to enemy attacks. The arrow did not make her bleed, and rather only left a bruise upon her right shoulder.

The other elves included a few swordsmen, archers, and wizards; they were quickly taken care of by a few blasts of magic from Aaron's wand as well as a Trap set up by Claire. The elf wizard had dropped for Aaron a Missile Wand, a blue-spiked staff that shot more powerful bolts than his current Fire Wand — and thus Aaron took it as his new weapon.

Ranorn Forest was the largest forest in all of the Realm; it was bordered by the Nidel Mountains to the south and by the ocean to the north, and thus served as the only possible passage through from the West Darylin Plains to the Eoryun Highlands. In terms of breadth, the forest wasn't much; it would take only about two days for the party to pass through the place.

Inside, the forest was very lush but also quite misty; it always seemed to be covered in a deep fog that gave the place a chilly ambiance. The trees that grew here were mostly deciduous; they were of elms, ash, birch, and oak, and bore bright green leaves. The grass grew tall beneath the trees, and there were hardly any visible trails that led through the forest; the dirt path that the party took was surrounded by much undergrowth, such as shrubs and flower bushes — they bore mostly lilacs and white trillium, which gave to the air a pleasant and humid smell.

"I don't like this place," Aaron said as they began their journey through the forest. "The forest must be home to much tougher monsters than out on the plains."

"That depends on where we head," Kira replied. "I've been through Ranorn Forest only once before, and I've encountered a few of those nasty golems and dark elves here — if we're careful, then we should be able to avoid them."

Claire nodded. "What about this mist, though? Is the forest always shrouded like this?"

"I'm not sure," Kira said. "Though I believe that it may be the Ents' magic at work."

"Ents?"

"There are four Ent Groves inside this forest. The Ent Ancients are powerful, malicious creatures who do not take very kindly to humans passing through their home."

"Why not?"

"…Because we chop down this forests' trees, I believe. About five years ago, almost the entirety of the West Darylin Plains was covered by forest. To build the Nexus Town, we had to clear much of these woods, and this awakened the Ents, sworn protectors of their forest."

"They don't sound like very friendly creatures. I hope we can try to avoid them."

The party began making their way up a hill; from there, they followed a trail southwards down into a small tree-filled valley, which was located beside one of the rivers that ran through the forest. There, they encountered the Anura Stream, a river that came out of the Nidel Mountains; it was wide but very shallow, and the shores were covered in sand (rather than dirt).

"I think this is the right river," Kira said as they approached the valley. "The Anura Stream, it's called. It goes west and leads out of this forest, passing by a few clearings along the way; many travelers follow its convenient path to reach the Highlands beyond."

"I hope you're leading us the right way," Aaron replied. "It'd be quite terrible if you followed this river southwards instead, which would lead us straight into the Nidel Mountains."

"No, I'm sure that this is the right path." Kira suddenly spun her head around as she saw something, or someone, move out of the corner of her eye.

"What is it?" Aaron asked.

Kira shook her head. "Nothing, but keep yourselves on guard. There may be enemies nearby."

 _Then that's not really "nothing"!_ Claire felt like saying, but she decided to keep her mouth shut.

They began following the river downstream, which led them out of the valley and towards another trail inside the forest; here, the mist seemed to grow thicker. The feeling of apprehension that was overwhelming her ever since Claire entered the woods began to grow stronger as she heard something move beside her; they did not sound like footsteps, more like an oddly-placed rustling of bush leaves when there should've been no wind. Obviously, something was hiding in the nearby undergrowth, and it may have been following them.

"Do you feel like…someone's watching us?" Claire whispered to Aaron about an hour later.

"I'm not sure; though I do get the feeling that we're being followed."

Kira had now taken the lead, and she was walking quite a few yards ahead of them. All of a sudden, she stopped and spun around, sending a blast of magic from her staff towards a nearby tree; a tiny, roasted blue creature fell out from the bush that it had been hiding under. It was an undead hobbit archer.

"Oh," Kira said, sighing as she walked back towards the party. "Just a hobbit. They're mean little creatures, and their arrows can sting if they manage to hit you. Not very dangerous, however; I shouldn't have been so worried."

"That's good to know," Claire replied. "I had the feeling that we were being followed."

"Still, though; most of the creatures inside this realm usually prefer to hunt in groups rather than by themselves. There must be other enemies nearby, so keep on your—" Before she could finish her sentence, Kira suddenly whipped her staff towards another tree, causing a bolt of magic to blast a gelatinous green cube into smithereens.

"Annoying rats!" She exclaimed. "Well, if that's all of them, then let's get going."

 _Huh. She sure gets mad easily,_ Claire thought to herself after seeing Kira act so viciously in response to the monsters who had been following them.

In the afternoon, the mist inside the forest seemed to grow even thicker, and by then it became increasingly difficult for the party to keep track of their directions. They had just left the river behind and arrived inside a small clearing; the skies above them were dark and cloudy, and the air was quite chilly. Claire felt that they were being followed again, but this time by something slightly _larger_ and more powerful than the Hobbit archer.

"We're going the wrong way…" Kira suddenly said. "I don't think the river was supposed to lead to this clearing. First, we had to cross an empty Ent Grove, I believe."

 _An Ent Grove!?_ Claire thought to herself. _Well, if it was empty, then I suppose I shouldn't be too worried…_

"Well, let's head back, then," Aaron suggested. "Now, where was the river again? Southwards or to the east?"

"Wait, hold on!" Claire exclaimed. "Do you hear that noise?"

"Yeah…there's something here. We're being followed again," Kira agreed. She backed away from the trees until she was standing beside Aaron and Claire. "But by what?"

"I don't know, but we had better leave this place."

"It's okay," Kira said. "There aren't too many powerful monsters inside this forest. If we stay together, then we'll be fine."

They departed out of the clearing and headed southwards back to the river. From there they began following it again, this time down a hill and towards some small cliffs; from there, they continued heading west, and this time they reached a much larger clearing — it was a meadow of sorts, surrounded by wildflowers such as tulips and daisies.

"Watch out!" Aaron suddenly yelled when he saw a figure charging towards them from behind some trees. He quickly raised his wand, and then shot a ball of blue magic at a tall, shady-looking (though somewhat human-like) figure wearing teal-coloured armor. Both Kira and Claire spun around as well and saw that they were being attacked by a group of creatures called Dark Elves.

"Dammit," Claire whispered. "Battle after battle. Do we get no rest from monsters while traveling inside this realm?"

"No; hardly," Kira responded. "After all, Oryx's minions are out everywhere to get us."

Claire immediately loaded an arrow to her crossbow and launched it at a dark elf swordsman. The shot struck the creature's chest and pierced through its armor, instantly killing him; the other elves responded by sending a wave of arrows towards the group. Claire was struck upon her leg, and this time, she noticed that the arrow hurt a lot more than before — probably because this creature was a lot stronger than its (plain) elven brethren. Nevertheless, she persisted and shot down another dark elf, this time a mage, with a second arrow.

"Alright; now's a good time to teach you about the circling technique," Kira said. She suddenly backed away from her enemies and hid behind a tree.

"Oryx's minions aren't very smart, in case you haven't noticed. They'll charge after you and concentrate their attacks only in one direction. Therefore, circling them is the best way to deal with groups of enemies."

Claire began running after Kira as she darted from one tree to the next; she also observed Aaron doing the same, resulting in the enemy being rather confused — for they did not know where to strike next. All the while, they were able to pick their targets off with their attacks; Aaron fell a few more swordsmen with several blasts from his wand, and Claire shot down all of the enemy archers. She was only hit once (more) by a blast of fiery magic from a Dark Elf Mage; though it actually hurt a lot and she nearly fell to the ground.

"Hey, Claire! Hold on a sec!" Aaron suddenly yelled. He grabbed his book, a Healing Tome, and opened up to a random page. Then he yelled out some strange words, and all of a sudden, Claire's wound instantly disappeared. It was as if the words materialized into a stream of flowing magic, and when it entered her body, the sensation of cool, crystal-clear water washed over Claire's mind, removing her body of all pain.

"What was that?" Claire asked after the battle.

"I'm a cleric, you could say," Aaron replied. "I'm not sure how I acquired the skill to do this, but when I read from this book, I can instantly heal all my wounds — as well as yours."

"Well, thank you," Claire said. She looked around her and observed the dead bodies of the Dark Elves that lay strewn over the battlefield; their blood soaked the once lush and green meadow grass.

 _I can't believe that I have become so powerful in just a few days…_ Claire thought to herself. _I should feel like some merciless killer right now, yet I don't, for some reason. Must be some strange effect of being inside this Realm for too long. Should I consider this a good or a bad thing?_

"Let's leave this place," Kira suggested. "It's almost evening time and we had best find some place to camp for the night."

They had not gone far from the meadow when they discovered a strange-looking dwelling inside the forest. It looked like ruins of some sort, except that it was too well-structured and resembled an actual house (despite being overly large); the walls were built of wood and stone and there was a chimney on the roof.

"Old dwellings like these are common sights in the Realm," Kira said. "Travelers used to build these settlements before there were any towns."

"Does anyone still leave here, though?" Aaron asked.

"I'm not sure." Kira stepped forward to the front door of the house and knocked. To their surprise, there came an immediate answer.

"Why, hello there!?" Said a deep and somewhat rusty voice as the door opened up. There stood a bald purple-robed man, with large yellow eyes and strangely tanned skin colour.

"…A Necromancer!?" Kira exclaimed. "Oh, I didn't expect to find one here."

"Well, come on in!" The man said. The party entered his house to find themselves within somewhat of a cross between a nature junkyard and a living room. There were trees growing inside his house, as well as various bushes and flowers and plants, even mushrooms; a table and a kitchen lay beside the entrance. _What a strange settlement,_ Claire thought.

"What do you need?" The Necromancer asked. "You can shelter here for the night if you want. I really don't have much food to eat, though."

 _Understandable, since he's half-undead — I believe._

"Shelter's fine," Kira replied. "We've been running from some enemies and a strange mist all day. I think that we might be lost…"

"That must be the Ents, then," the Necromancer replied. "They're fortifying their defenses within this forest, to prevent travelers from passing through. Annoying little critters, aren't they?"

While Kira and the Necromancer talked, Claire and Aaron walked past the living room and entered another portion of this nature-overgrown house; the next room looked like a mix between a bedroom and a library. Placed around a large, comfortable bed were two bookshelves, which held candles as well as some old (and magical) scrolls.

"I wonder why this Necromancer is being so nice to us," Claire whispered to Aaron. "Are people always so hospitable to travelers inside this Realm?"

"I suppose so," Aaron answered. "And why shouldn't they be? No one is really 'enemies' or a stranger to each other in this world, as long as they are human. We've all got a common goal: defeat Oryx's minions, and fight to live another day. Nothing really matters beyond that."

"Oh…really?"

"Maybe it sounds strange to you, but in my opinion, that's what happens in a world created by necessity. Survival's the number one important thing to everyone, and because we all share a common enemy — that is, Oryx and his minions — there's no point bickering and warring amongst ourselves. Thus do all humans have to work together in order to win this shared battle."

 _I find that hard to believe. A world where humans don't argue, or fight, or bicker amongst themselves? That sounds almost like paradise. Yet it's not, because now we face a whole new problem: survival against all the monsters of this realm. But…I think that's at least better than a world where we frequently war with each other._

Kira entered the room. "Our host, Merrick, will allow us to stay here at his house for tonight; then tomorrow he will accompany us out of this forest."

"Really? That's great!" Aaron exclaimed. "I'm tired. After dinner I'm going straight to bed."

"Me too," Claire added with a yawn. "Does he know the way out of this forest?"

"Yes, but it involves…having to enter an Ent Grove."

"What!?"

"They seem to have been the cause of our problems today; we can't leave this forest until we destroy at least one of them. So we had better be prepared for tomorrow's battle."

"Alright, I guess…" Claire responded with a sigh. She closed her eyes and plopped down onto the bed.

 _Then again…if I remember anything from the world that I came from, it's that my life was comfortable. In this realm however, every day is a battle, a struggle for survival…I'll never really get any rest, will I?_

* * *

Claire awoke early next morning and ate a quick breakfast (consisting of a sandwich and some fruits) before meeting up with Kira and Aaron to resume their journey; Merrick was waiting for them outside his house with all his equipment ready. He wielded a Staff of Horror and an Essence Tap Skull; he also wore an Illusionist's Robe and a Ring of Superior Attack.

"Where shall we head now?" Kira asked. "The mist inside this forest hasn't lifted yet, so we're still quite lost."

"Let's head back to the Anura Stream," Merrick suggested. "I know how to reach our destination — that is, the nearest Ent Grove — from there."

 _This will be my second major battle,_ Claire thought to herself. _Though since we have Merrick on our side — and he must be quite powerful, I believe — we shouldn't have too much trouble with the Ent Ancient…_

They proceeded south of the Necromancer's dwelling back towards the clearing where they had fought the dark elves, then went east down a hill to reach the river again. From there, Merrick took the lead and began guiding them northwards down the stream.

"Hey, I don't remember the river going this way…" Aaron commented while he followed Merrick. "It was supposed to curve west, wasn't it?"

"This is certainly Ent-magic at work," Merrick replied. "I've seen the likes of it before. The mist casts a veil over the forest, and when nobody's looking, the trees shift to change the position of things. You might think that this river is going north, but it's still actually heading westwards."

"Oh…that's quite interesting," Aaron said. "I hope we take care of these Ents quickly before they make us completely lost. Hey, you know where you're going, right?"

"I know this forest like the back of my hand," Merrick responded. "We'll reach the Ent Grove in about an hour. Best prepare yourself for the battle up ahead."

They eventually reached a ford, and here the river split and began heading down two paths: one led to a small lake located to the north of the forest, while the other went down a waterfall. Merrick led them southwards towards the waterfall, and from there he continued a steady path west until they reached the base of some cliffs.

"Ah, I know this place!" Kira said. "We're at where we should've been yesterday if we had continued to follow the river instead of heading to that clearing. Yet I don't recall these cliffs being located west of the waterfalls at the Anura Stream…"

"It's the Ent-magic, again," Aaron replied. "I hear noises in the distance. How far are we to their grove?"

Claire suddenly spun around as she saw four red bat-like creatures fly towards them from some nearby bushes. One of them lashed out at her with its sharp teeth, biting Claire upon her shoulder.

"Ouch!" She yelled as she stumbled backwards and nearly fell to the floor. Fortunately, a blast of magic from Merrick's staff instantly incinerated all four of these bats into dust.

"What were those creatures?" Claire asked.

"Just some red bats; they're quite a common annoyance roaming this forest. Oh, look! One of them dropped something." The Necromancer ran forward and picked up a red Health Potion from a fallen bat's wings.

"Huh. I never knew that bats could carry potions with them," Aaron commented.

They continued following the river until it reached another clearing; to Claire's surprise, she found that this one was completely surrounded by pink cherry trees. They gave the air a sweet, pleasant, and luscious flower-like smell. However, the mist here grew extremely thick; so much in fact that now, Claire could barely see more than five or ten feet in front of her body.

"It's the Ent Grove!" Kira whispered. "Do you hear the trees standing at the center of the clearing? They're whispering to each other…"

Claire stepped towards one of the cherry trees and hid herself behind it; indeed, as she closed her eyes, she began to hear the whispers of a few soft words spoken through the air.

"Humans…arriving at…our home…with their…weapons and destruction…"

Then there was a rumbling sound, followed by a shaking of leaves. A cool breeze blew through the air, parting away the fog and revealing several disfigured tree-like bodies standing at the center of the clearing. Some of these trees were small and resembled saplings; but they had eyes and bipedal bodies formed from branch-shaped arms and legs. They stood guarding a few larger trees, which had dark and gnarled branches as well as a crown of thorns. Hovering over them all, however, was a giant black tree with glowing red eyes and decaying brown leaves covering its trunk; this was, of course, the Ent Ancient himself.

"How do we make our move?" Claire heard Kira whisper, a bit frightfully, to Merrick. Actually, she couldn't be more scared of the enemy herself.

"The Ancient Ent is the only one we have to worry about," Merrick responded. "I'll take out all of the guards surrounding it. After I do that, you guys quickly come in to ambush the tree from behind."

"Are you sure that'll work?" Kira asked. "I mean, it's standing right at the center of the clearing. That makes it pretty hard for us to catch the tree by surprise."

"But the Ent's weakness lies in its size. It can only target one opponent at a time; I'll volunteer to distract this creature while you guys strike it down. The Ent Ancient is too slow to be able to turn around and attack more than one target at a time."

"Are you sure that you'll be okay, then?"

"Yes. Now, get ready!"

Merrick raised his staff and charged into the clearing; he immediately blasted the first three Ents with a twin bolt of magic, reducing them into ashes. Suddenly, the Ent Ancient roared and then raised his branch-shaped arm up into the air, preparing to strike at the Necromancer. But Merrick was too fast; he easily evaded his enemy's attack by jumping out of the way just as the Ent's massive claw-like fist smashed down onto the floor. He then continued to blast at the smaller trees until all but a few were dead; save for the Ent Ancient himself, of course.

"Now, attack!" Merrick yelled, giving his allies the signal.

Kira and Aaron charged into battle, with Claire following closely behind. They surprised the Ent Ancient by striking him from behind with their attacks: a ball of blue magic from Aaron, a burst of fire from Kira's spell, and a volley of arrows from Claire. The Ent struggled to turn its body around in order to defend itself from its new opponents; all the while Merrick launched wave after wave of magical blasts at the giant tree.

 _Hey, I'm doing pretty good!_ Claire thought. _Maybe fighting a battle is really all just about cooperation._

The Ent Ancient suddenly roared, and it opened up its trunk-like mouth to belch out a wave of fire towards its enemies. This caught Claire by surprise, and she was struck square in the face by a powerful flaming ball of magic. Fortunately, Aaron had a spell from his Healing Tome ready just in time to heal Claire of her wound; once again, just as the words had left his mouth, they seemed to materialize into a stream of magical energy which entered Claire's mind to relieve her of her pain. She stood up and touched her face, surprised to find that the burn marks were gone in the blink of an eye.

"Thanks," Claire said, "That fireball really hurt. I never knew that the Ent was so strong."

"No problem." Aaron looked up at the giant tree and saw that it was about to blast them a second time with another fireball. Before it could unleash its attack, however, the Ent suddenly shrieked in terror as the very life was drained out of its body by Merrick's Essence Tap Skull. Kira quickly cast her Flame Burst spell again, causing a wave of green fire to consume the Ancient Ent and burn the tree into ashes.

That was close, Claire thought after the battle. She looked towards Merrick and was glad that his life-draining spell had saved her from being struck a second time by the Ancient Ent's fireball. So even a Necromancer can put his dark powers to good use…

As expected, the Ent left behind a treasure chest at the center of the grove after the battle. They opened it up and found various useful items located inside: for Claire, a Fire Bow, which — in terms of pure power — was much stronger than her Crossbow; Aaron took for himself a Robe of the Adept, which was black-and-gray in colour and proved slightly better than his Student's Robe; Kira acquired a Fire Nova spell. There were also some items inside the chest that they didn't need: a ring of Greater Wisdom and a Glass Sword, which they decided to keep in order to sell later; the rest were all healing potions.

"A decent find," Merrick commented, "Though I don't need any of it, of course — I hope that these items serve you well on your journey."

Claire noticed after the battle that the mist surrounding the clearing was beginning to disappear; it was evidence of the fact that an Ent Grove had been defeated, and thus passage through the forest was renewed.

"Thanks for helping us," Kira told Merrick. "Without you, I don't think we would've been able to defeat that Ancient Ent, and then we'd be stuck inside this forest forever."

"No problem," Merrick replied. "Helping travelers is what I do. It's why I choose to live inside this forest, after all."

 _Wouldn't it get lonely after a while, though?_ Claire thought to herself. _Perhaps that's just how some people are inside this Realm. And as long as they're helping others, who am I to complain about their choices?_

…Hmmmm. This feels just like before, though. After working with Merrick to defeat the Ent Ancient, I feel as if we've become friends. Yet now, like all the other travelers inside this realm, he's gonna leave us just like that…in the end, we really ARE all alone. Maybe Aaron's right; separation is inevitable. But doesn't that mean that he'll also leave me one day? And Kira, too?

"Hey, Claire!" Kira called out to her, breaking Claire out of her thoughts. "We're leaving now; it's not even noon yet, so we'll try to get out of this forest as soon as possible. We should get going."

Claire nodded. _Well, of course, some things can wait. And after all, hasn't separation ALWAYS been inevitable throughout our lives?_ She thought back to her lost past, and tried to recall some old friend from her muddled memories whom she must have left behind when she was taken into this realm. _I bet that it was no different in the world that I came from before. I probably met new people every day, talked with them and smiled and laughed, and then I never saw them ever again._

 _Well…it's just that in this Realm, it feels so different. It's like us humans have so much greater a bond with each other since we constantly have to fight Oryx's minions…come to think of it, under oppression, we're all united by a common goal, and because of it, we see each other as equals: people who have faced similar difficulties in life. We're all humans, therefore we have to work together in order to solve our problems. I think that this world truly shows what human coexistence is all about: we can only understood each other if we all have the same goal, a shared problem to overcome together._

 _…_ _How fascinating._


	4. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL IV

RotMG Novel: Chapter IV

In the early afternoon, the group arrived out of the forest and into the Eoryun Highlands, a vast and mountainous stretch of land that expanded all the way to the far western reaches of the Realm; to the south, nearby the ocean, was Dale's Port. The monsters that roamed these highlands were numerous and prolific; here dwelt some of the stronger monsters of the Realm, such as the widely-feared Lesser Gods and their abundant minions — the Undead Dwarfs or the Night Elves, for example. In large groups they traveled, and were a bane to many travelers who wandered the highlands unwary of the danger that they faced.

The party arrived into the Highlands near the top of a hill; there was a path nearby, the old Lanise Road, which came out from Dale's Port and led north towards the Blue Wood. For now, obviously, the party would only need to take this road south in order to reach the town.

"How far are we away from Dale's Port?" Aaron asked as they left the forest.

"We'll probably get there by tomorrow. This road actually stretches pretty far; it goes down the side of a mountain and passes through the southern steppes until it reaches the ocean. We may have to fight a few tough enemies along the way; the Highlands are home to some of the more powerful monsters of this Realm."

"That doesn't sound good," Claire replied. "I'm tired of having to battle so many of Oryx's minions."

"Welcome to life inside the Realm," Kira said with a sad smile.

 _Well, if I ever had a conscience that pitied monsters, it's definitely gone now,_ Claire thought, reflecting upon how she had been slightly reluctant about killing creatures on her first day inside this Realm.

They began heading down Lanise Road, and the day remained quite uneventful throughout the afternoon. However, at evening time, they met trouble when they saw that the path led into some woods, which were known to contain many of the highland's monster-infested ruins.

The skies were beginning to darken, leaving the woods almost pitch black under the veil of the forest trees. Claire began to hear noises in the distance that sounded like footsteps; and at times there was a rustle of leaves on the ground, or the snap of a twig, or the shaking of some branches. _We're definitely being followed,_ Claire thought, _though our pursuers don't seem to be very subtle about it._

"I hope we leave this forest soon," Claire whispered. "I think we're being followed by monsters again."

"Let's keep on our watch, then," Kira replied. "This highlands is filled with monsters, especially in places such as forests. I just hope that it's not some Lesser Gods that we have to deal with."

 _That wasn't very reassuring,_ Claire thought. _I better be prepared to deal with whatever's pursuing us, then._

The road suddenly led to a clearing in the middle of the forest: a meadow of sorts, located beside a hill whereupon a tall and ancient structure had been built. They looked like the old ruins of some large tower, which must have once been inhabited by humans; either that, or it was home to Oryx's minions.

"Hey!" Aaron yelled as he spun around to suddenly see a strange, golem-like enemy rushing towards him. The creature was brown in colour and had an egg-shaped body, with small hands and legs and two tiny black eyes.

"An Earth Golem," Kira whispered. She quickly thrust her staff at the creature and sent a blast of magic towards it, incinerating the golem into dust.

"There's more coming out from that tower over there," Claire exclaimed. She saw a white, mummy-like golem (possibly made out of paper), a blue glass golem, and a red fire golem charging towards them from the nearby ruins. "Damn! Luck's just never on our side, is it?"

"This Realm is full of monsters. I'd consider ourselves lucky that we made it through the whole afternoon without having to fight a single battle," Kira replied. "Well, that's up until now, at least."

Claire ducked as she saw the glass golem send a wave of blue fire towards her; she then shot the creature down with an arrow from her Fire Bow, while Kira and Aaron both blasted the Paper Golem into ashes with their spells. Then came from behind some trees another Earth Golem as well as a gray Metal Golem; they ambushed the party and Claire was struck by a rock-hard punch from the brown golem's fists. She backed away in pain, grasping her shoulder where she had been hit; meanwhile Kira cast her Fire Nova spell, causing a wave of fiery energy to consume the two golems and burning them into dust. Aaron took down the last Fire Golem with a bolt of magic from his wand.

"Let's get out of here before we get attacked by any more of these golems," Claire suggested. They began running down the road, which took them back into the forest — and they did not stop running until they finally came out of the woods.

"I think we're safe, now," Kira said, panting and gasping for breath. "It's beginning to get quite dark. We should find a place to rest, now."

"The waterfall, maybe?" Aaron suggested. "The cataract's a popular gathering place for the travelers of this Realm."

 _Huh? What is he talking about?_ Claire thought.

"No, that's a bit too far away," Kira replied. "Let's just find a river and camp by the shore."

They left the road and, about twenty minutes later, came upon a small stream where they could rest for the night. They ate a satisfying dinner that consisted of some grilled fish caught from the nearby river, and then prepared to go to sleep. Claire, however, still had a question that she wanted to ask. She sat down beside Aaron, who was lying beneath the boughs of a large oak tree.

"Hey, what's this 'waterfall' that you were talking about earlier? Is it important?"

"The Enlian Cataract, you mean. It's a giant waterfall, stretching several kilometers wide that's located at the center of the Highlands. We're quite far away from it right now; but the cataract is a very significant landmark of this Realm, and a lot of travelers frequently gather there."

"Oh, so you wanted to visit the place," Claire said. "Well, we have to finish our current journey first, which is to follow Kira to Dale's Port."

Aaron nodded. "I know; it's okay, we can go see the waterfall after we take Kira to her town."

Claire closed her eyes and leaned her head back upon the oak tree that she had been sitting against. _Thanks, Aaron,_ she thought, _for staying with me all the way. I just needed to know that you won't leave me after our first journey is over._ She was soon lured to sleep by the peaceful sounds of the night: the crickets chirping, and the flowing water from the nearby stream.

* * *

The morning of their next day passed quite uneventfully until they arrived at the town of Dale's Port in the afternoon. They had climbed down the mountains from the Highlands and arrived upon the plains near the southern seas; the skies were blue and cloudless, and there was a warm breeze in the air which carried the salty scent of the ocean's foam. Claire couldn't have felt gladder when she saw civilization again; this town was quite different from the Nexus, for it had actual houses — built of brick and stone — and not dwellings that were intertwined with each other by some strange, chrome-like material.

The town was built beside the shores of a beach; naturally, the streets were lined with markets and merchants running about selling mostly seafood or items such as fishing rods. The buildings were tall and usually had signs at their entrance to indicate their purpose, such as "Tavern" or "Inn"; the town square also contained a port that was currently filled with small ships and sailors running about. All in all, Dale's Port was fairly modern for a city of the Realm.

"We're finally here," Kira said as they entered the city. "There's a person in this town who I would like to visit. You can come with me if you want, or you can go and explore this town a bit."

"I think we'll explore," Claire replied. "We have to sell all the loot we acquired from our journey, remember?"

Kira nodded. "Well, then, where shall I meet you for dinner this afternoon?"

 _Oh, that's good: Kira's planning on staying with us on our journey,_ Claire thought.

"How about that restaurant over there?" Claire pointed to a large building with a sign in front that said: 'Shell's Seafood.'

"I'll see you later, then," Kira said; and with that, she was off.

"Where do you want to go now?" Aaron asked once Kira was gone.

"To a marketplace or something. We can sell our loot to acquire food and stuff, right?"

Aaron nodded. "I believe so."

They made their way towards a town square, and there they stopped by a few vendors who were selling meats and other groceries (such as vegetables) for journeying purposes. After trading all their acquired equipment (the ones that they didn't need, of course), they were able to buy enough food for another weeks' worth of travel: some bread, fruits, vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, and some cucumbers), cheese, a few dried meats, as well as several water skins. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the town, such as the various shops, pubs, inns, and taverns; to their surprise, they met Kira at the local weapon shop.

"Hey!" Claire yelled when she saw her friend browsing over a few choices of weapons. Kira turned around and waved at the two.

"Oh! I'm glad I found you two," Kira replied. "Ummm…I'm sorry, but I won't be able to eat at the restaurant this afternoon with you."

 _I never even imagined that this Realm would even have restaurants,_ Claire thought.

"I came to Dale's Port to visit my brother, Elliot. Unfortunately, he's very sick right now…he caught a rather unique disease called the Petrifying fever."

"I'm sorry," Claire replied. "Can we help him in any way?"

"The fever's not easily curable; Elliot might be stuck in bed for months. We'll need to go find an item called the Medusa's Venom in order to heal him."

" _Medusa's Venom_? That's quite poisonous, isn't it?" Aaron asked.

"But, it can also be a potent medicine. Unfortunately, we can only acquire it by defeating one of the strongest creatures of this Realm…the Medusa, of course."

 _That doesn't sound pleasant,_ Claire thought. _Are we already going out on another journey again?_

"There's no way we stand a chance against a Medusa all by ourselves," Aaron said. "Is there no hope?"

"Actually…I thought of something," Kira replied. "It's the Enlian Cataract; lots of travelers gather there, don't they? We could find a few strong adventurers amongst them, and ask if they could accompany us to slay a Medusa."

"That might work. Still, I don't like the idea of having to fight a Medusa…but, I'll risk this quest if it can help save your brother's life."

"Thanks, you two," Kira said with a smile. "And look! Claire, I found you a new weapon!" She grabbed off the shelf of the weapons store a Double Bow; she had recently exchanged a Rogue's Red Agent cloak for it.

"Oh! You bought it for me?" Claire exclaimed as she took the bow from Kira's hands. "Why, thank you."

"No, thank _you_ for helping me," Kira replied. "I really appreciate you going on this journey to try and save my brother's life."

"We're just glad we could help."

"So, when do we get going?" Aaron asked.

"If we can…I'd like to leave right now," Kira said. "I know that all seems a bit sudden, and I understand if you want to stay in this town to rest for a while."

"No; we've already bought all the food that we need to continue on our journey," Claire replied. _Of course I'd like to rest for a few more days! But…helping Kira's brother is far more important, right?_

"Alright, then," Kira said. "Let's go."

* * *

From Dale's Port, they departed northwards and traveled back up the mountain via Lanise Road; then, instead of returning back towards Ranorn Forest (to the east), they headed a bit further west until they arrived at the Enlian Cataract.

Even from a mile away, Claire could already hear the sounds of the waterfall: the loud, rushing water that crashed down the mountainside with a tremendous roar. Here, the air was fresh and humid, and surrounding the waterfall was a meadow of beautiful and exotic flowers that Claire had never seen before: amongst them were red and yellow lavenders, large blue tulips, orange lilacs, and even a purple star-shaped floor that somewhat resembled a trillium. It was sometime around dusk when they reached the waterfall; a faded rainbow was in the maroon sky, and Claire could feel the spray of water upon her face as if it was raining — it was quite refreshing.

They approached a group of travelers who were sitting under a large willow tree located beside a river. They seemed to be engaged in some important discussion, so Claire approached the group politely.

"Hello," Claire said to a knight with short brown hair. "What's going on around here?"

"We're discussing matters involving the two Master Gods who have appeared of late…"

 _Master Gods? What are they?_ Claire thought.

"A Cube God has been terrorizing the Lefran Snow Plains to the north; in the south, there's an ongoing battle against a Pentaract of the Nidel Mountains. We're preparing to head to the Blue Wood and take on the Cube God first."

"Oh, alright. Say, will you be encountering any Medusas along the way?"

The knight gave Claire a strange look. "Medusas? Well, yes, of course, if we're heading into God territory. You'll probably find one even before you leave the Eoryun Highlands."

"Thank you." Claire rushed back to her friends to tell them of the good news.

"Let's just follow that group over there," Claire said. "There's around twenty of them, so we'll be fine if we have to fight some Medusas."

"That's great! When do they leave?" Kira asked.

"Quite soon, I believe," Claire replied. _Damn! I should've asked them that._

Fortunately, at around nightfall, the group set out north towards the Blue Woods, and the party began following after them. They kept at a steady pace and journeyed across the plains that the three had passed through yesterday, arriving back at Lanise Road — which took them into the mountains — at around midnight. After climbing up a tall hill, they found another river which came from a waterfall at the base of some cliffs; it led west into a nearby forest. The group decided to camp at this location for the night.

"We're lucky that we didn't encounter any monsters today," Kira said while she ate her dinner. They were sitting around a campfire that had been built on the shores of the river; all the other travelers were preparing to go to sleep. "Still, I feel slightly uneasy for some reason."

"It's because of your brother, isn't it?" Claire replied. "I hope he's alright."

"He will be, if we succeed in our quest." Kira closed her eyes and laid her head down upon the soft grass; for a few seconds she remained quiet and did not respond.

"My brother, Elliot…we were both taken into this realm together," Kira said. "Although I have no memory of my life before I arrived into this world, my brother was able to remember: some of it, at least, like our home, our family, and our friends. And then today, when I met him, he said that he couldn't recall a thing anymore. He blamed it upon his sickness."

"I'm sorry," Claire said. "I'm amazed that anyone can remember about their past in this realm at all."

Kira nodded. "Maybe once he recovers from the Petrifying Fever, he'll gain his memory back."

 _That would be wonderful,_ Claire thought. _Perhaps, once he tells us of his past, I'll be able to recall some of mine, too. That's a big 'if', though._

"Hey, Kira…" Aaron began to ask. "Do you think we'll be stuck inside this realm forever?"

"I don't know," Kira responded. "Maybe if we fight and defeat the Mad God, he'll return us to our homes. Although that's…a bit _far-fetched_ , in my opinion. I can't imagine how weak humans like us would be able to take on a God."

Claire closed her eyes. _Far-fetched, yes, but also impractical. Currently, we have no memory of our past. Even if the Mad God did return us to our homes, would we be able to recall anything of our old lives? No, I don't think so. Our only memory is that of the Realm; this world would then become what we know of our new "past". Or maybe we won't even remember the Realm at all, either?_

"I think I'll go to sleep," Claire said as she laid her head down onto the ground. "We've had a rough day, and I got hardly any time to rest inside the town."

"I'm sorry; it's my fault that you guys had to go on another journey," Kira replied.

"It's okay. We just want to help out your brother…you're our friend, right, Kira?"

Kira smiled a little. "Yeah…"

Before they could fall asleep, however, there came suddenly a loud cry off in the distance: "Dark Elves! Ogres! An ambush raid!"

Immediately everyone jumped to their feet and grabbed their weapons; Claire scrambled to grab her bow and arrows.

"What's going on?" Kira asked.

"Didn't you hear? We're being attacked by some monsters right now!" A paladin responded. "If it's just dark elves and ogres, then this shouldn't be very difficult."

"Ogres?" Aaron asked. "What are they?"

"The spawn of one of the lesser Gods," Kira replied. "But our group's definitely big enough to take them all on."

The Dark Elves charged out of the trees; there must've been at least thirty of them, much bigger than the group that the party had encountered inside Ranorn Forest. There was a clashing of swords and a singing of spells; arrows flew madly through the air. To avoid being caught in the midst of all this chaos, Claire moved towards the center of the group, where she was relatively safe from harm. Once or twice she shot an arrow at an open target, and was able to take down a few of the elves.

Next came the ogres; the dark elves retreated a little and then a few Lesser Gods made their arrival. Amongst them was of course, a large brown Ogre God, who had dark tanned hide and a bull-like face; two white horns protruded out from his head. He was currently guarded by two Ogre Wizards and a warrior; from behind came two Lizard Gods as well. One of the wizards immediately cast his most powerful spell: 'Magic Nova', and a comet-shaped ball of energy flew down from the skies towards the Ogre God. The comet exploded into twenty streams of white lightning as soon as it crashed onto the ground, spearing all three of the Gods and decimating the Ogres surrounding them. From the forest to their west, however, suddenly came another wave of Dark Elves; and this time they were also accompanied by hideous black-robed Night Elves as well.

"These enemies aren't worth the effort," a tall Warrior suddenly yelled. "They'll just keep coming if we stay here. Let's move on!"

 _What!?_ Claire thought to herself. _But I thought we were staying here for the night! Haven't we already set up camp?_

"No time to waste; let's follow them," Kira told Claire.

"Shouldn't we stay here and defend our positions?" Claire replied. "It would seem like the most logical thing to do."

Kira shook her head. "Not in this realm."

"What do you mean, 'not in this realm!?'"

They began moving at a fast pace northwards, with the enemy chasing them not less than fifty yards behind. They eventually reached a small hill surrounded by a forest; immediately this brought to Claire's memory last night's expedition through the forest, and the ensuing ambush from the golems. She slowly inched her way towards the center of the group again, where she felt more protected.

"You see," Kira said as they ran, "The number of monsters in this Realm far outnumber us humans. We could stay and fight, and hold our positions — yes, that's what we would do if it was a war. But currently we're on a journey, and our group only consists of about twenty people. If we continued fighting, it would attract the attention of more monsters, and soon we'd be facing a massive swarm of enemies."

"So we're just going to abandon our camp, just like that?" Claire asked.

"Yes; it is a necessity. In this realm, never get attached to anything. You're always moving on; moving forward to the unknown fate that awaits you."

 _My unknown…fate? I really don't like the way that Kira said that…_

"Hey!" Someone from the front of the group suddenly yelled. "This forest is near the edge of the Blue Wood! That means we're entering God territory!"

 _God…Territory!?_

Claire observed her surroundings and saw nothing but trees; they were a strange kind of tree whose leaves half bore pines, and were half-deciduous — but more importantly they were also teal in colour, which gave the forest slightly more light than trees with green leaves would. It seemed haunting, almost; in the pitch-black darkness there was the glow of bluish leaves, a phenomenon that Claire had never seen in nature before.

"What are Gods!?" Claire asked, deciding that knowledge about her upcoming enemies would be more important than this forest's natural aesthetics.

"The most powerful creatures of this realm. Unless you're very strong, do not try to take on one alone. We should be safe right now, since we're in a group."

Inside the forest, they hurried down a dirt path until they arrived at a small valley located at the base of some cliffs; there were two Night Elves and a Darkness Golem waiting for them there. However, a blast of magic from a wizard and a necromancer quickly took them out. Then they turned east and began heading up a hill, which eventually led into a clearing in the middle of the forest; from there they could either continue northwards deeper into the Blue Woods, or head down the hill and take a longer road around the valley cliffs.

"Are we safe yet?" A Rogue amongst the group asked.

Claire looked around her, feeling as if something was missing. She suddenly realized what it was: Aaron was gone.

"Kira!" Claire yelled. "Aaron's gone! He's not in this group anywhere."

A look of shock came over Kira's face. "What!? Where could he have gone?"

Claire closed her eyes and wished that she had never followed this group.

* * *

 _A Medusa! I saw one!_ Aaron thought as he departed from the group towards the tall, green, snake-like creature that he had seen hiding amongst the trees. "Claire, tell them to come here! Let's take out this Medusa!

"…Claire?"

Aaron looked around him and noticed that the group was nowhere in sight. He was all alone, standing in the middle of this dark forest.

 _What-how…how did that happen?_ Aaron thought. _But the group was just here less than ten seconds ago!_

He looked on further ahead, and was immediately mesmerized by those glowing red eyes staring back at him. His mind suddenly fell into a daze, entranced by the Medusa's hypnotic stare; and he hardly noticed the slithering sounds made by the creature's snake-like body advancing towards him.

Aaron shook his head. _What!? How long has it been since I was last…thinking right?_

Then the hissing noise sent a shiver down his spine. Aaron hugged his thin arms around himself and backed away from those eyes that were slowly coming closer towards him. The Medusa had definitely noticed his presence by now.

 _The group…must be long gone by now,_ Aaron thought. _What I felt was ten seconds must have actually been entire minutes. It's the Medusa's eyes…I couldn't resist them._ He turned around and began running for his life. _Oh, how stupid I am! I can't possibly kill a Medusa all by myself!_

There was a gnashing of teeth, and then the Medusa made its full appearance: the creature's snake-like body was at least a foot wide, and it had green serpents growing upon its head instead of hair. Aaron dared not turn around and look at this monstrosity a second time.

"SSSStay aand fffeeeddd meee!" The Medusa hissed. It suddenly lifted its claw-like hands up into the air, and out shot five bolts of green lightning. Aaron was struck upon his foot, and the pain was like nothing he had felt before. It was as if his body was beginning to crumble like dust onto the floor, all the strength sapped out of him; then a second bolt struck his other leg and Aaron plummeted face-first to the ground.

"Spare me!" Aaron yelled to the Medusa, even though he knew that it was useless. "I don't want to die!" He curled up his lanky body to observe his legs, which he saw was bleeding badly.

"Dddelicioussss fooddd!" the Medusa cried with a hiss of pleasure. It prepared to strike a third time.

"No!" Aaron lifted up his wand and blasted out a bolt of magic at the Medusa. It struck the creature but did not seem to hurt the monster at all, and the Medusa continued to advance forward.

 _This is it, then…_ Aaron thought to himself, and he felt like crying out of sheer terror. _I'm going to die…and become food for this horrendous creature. Oh…how pathetic…goodbye, Aaron…_

And he saw the Medusa's trademark attack hover above him, a spell that he had heard of from many fellow travelers and which was widely feared. A red, bomb-shaped sphere of magic appeared in front of him; when it exploded, it was not possible that he could survive.

"Hey!"

A hand suddenly reached out and grabbed at Aaron, pulling him just out of range of the Medusa's attack; the bomb exploded and all the trees surrounding Aaron's body were incinerated into ashes, but the attack had missed him.

Aaron felt his body being lifted up upon someone's back, and this person's shoulder felt comforting; he rested his head upon it. Then there was a cry from the Medusa as it was pierced by some powerful attack; its body was suddenly paralyzed. Five seconds later, the monster fell dead to the floor, having been shot by almost fifty arrows.

Aaron opened his eyes as he felt his body being lowered gently onto the floor. He opened up his eyes to find himself staring in the face of an unknown person; he had expected to see Claire or Kira.

"Who…who are you?" Aaron asked weakly. He sat up and looked into the face of this person, who was a thin boy of a similar age (sixteen or seventeen). He had floppy black hair which was somewhat long enough to fall directly above his very dark eyes, and high cheekbones upon a pale-skinned face. Also he carried with him a Verdant Bow, a Magesteel Quiver, and wore a Roc Leather as well as a Ring of Paramount Health.

"I'm Eilin," the boy said.

"I'm…Aaron. Thank you…thank you so much for saving my life." Aaron suddenly reached out and gave Eilin a hug, even though this person was a complete stranger.

"Your…welcome," Eilin replied. "Your friend, Claire, told me that you had left our group behind."

"Yes…I'm sorry," Aaron said. "I've caused you and her so much trouble."

"It's alright. Let's bring you back to our group, now. Can you walk?"

"Wait." Aaron took out his cleric's tome and quickly cast a spell over himself to heal his wounded legs. The Medusa's attacks were powerful, so he was not able to recover fully yet; nevertheless, with Eilin's help he was able to stand up and walk quite fine.

"We need the Medusa's snake venom," Aaron said. "It's used to cure Petrifying fever, isn't it?"

"Yes, Claire told me about it. I'll go get its fangs."

They walked over towards the dead Medusa and began the tasteless job of prying the teeth out from the creature's poison-coated mouth.

* * *

"There's a Djinn over there!" Kira yelled as the group advanced towards the incoming host of Gods. Claire turned around and immediately fired two arrows from her Double Bow towards the large blue genie barring her path. It did no good; the God was simply too strong. The Djinn raised his hands up into the air and summoned up five bolts of blue lightning, preparing to strike down its enemy. A second arrow from behind, however, suddenly pierced the Djinn through its head, and the God fell to the ground as ashes.

"Eilin!" Claire yelled; she was overjoyed to find the archer there along with her friend, Aaron.

"Aaron! I'm so glad you're alright." She ran towards the boy and hugged him as tightly as possible.

"I'm sorry, Claire…" Aaron responded. "I was foolish to think that I could take on the Medusa by myself."

"It's okay…I'm just glad that you're alright. But don't ever go off like that again!"

Claire let go of her embrace and turned around to face the archer. "Eilin, thank you so much for rescuing my friend here."

"Your welcome. By the way…" — and he took out from his backpack two large venom-coated fangs, contained inside a glass bottle — "here's the item that you want."

"Oh!" Claire exclaimed when she saw the item. "You got this from the Medusa, too?"

"Yeah…listen. If the Medusa's Venom is the only item that you came on this journey to look for, you'd best leave this place now. The Blue Wood is infested with Gods, so it's obviously not safe to remain here any longer."

"We'll go right away," Claire said, and she turned around to get Kira.

"Hey, Eilin," Aaron whispered, "I…I just can't thank you enough for saving my life back there with the Medusa."

"It's okay."

"No, I'm so grateful for you." Aaron closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't know what to say. It's just that…well, I feel indebted to you — majorly indebted. But I don't really know what I could do for you. So…I just hope that we'll meet again, one day, I guess."

"Alright, then."

"Eilin…so you're heading with this group to fight more Gods, then?"

"Yeah…that's what I'm here for."

"I hope the rest of your journey goes safely, then!" Aaron turned around to find Kira and Claire rushing towards him.

"Aaron! I'm glad you're alright!" Kira cried, giving him a hug as well.

"Alright, we had better get going, then," Claire said. She turned around to face the archer. "Thanks, Eilin, for all your great help!"

"Bye, then," Eilin said, and he walked away to join with his group.

 _No, Aaron, you're wrong: not everyone in this realm only cares about themselves,_ Claire thought to herself, and she smiled.


	5. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL V

**RotMG Novel: Chapter V**

Over the course of the next three days, Claire and her group returned to the town of Dale's Port and rested there. A local Priest helped them turn the Medusa's Venom into powerful healing medicine, which they then gave to Kira's brother, Elliot, to cure him of the Petrifying Fever. It worked miraculously. In just a few hours, he no longer felt sick, and the next day he was able to recover all his strength. Meanwhile, Claire and Aaron stayed at a local inn and during the day, they went sightseeing out in this town; including renting a boat (in this Realm, the price for leisure activities was free) to go out and sail at sea. Nearby the town were some beautiful coral lagoons hidden in a cave underneath the beaches; they explored this place and caught a few tiny squids, which — in this world — were known as "Microcto," and were a common source of food (other than fish) for travelers. They also ate at a few restaurants (Claire was surprised that they even had restaurants in this realm at all), mostly seafood, and then they bought some more food for their upcoming journey ahead.

On the last day of their stay at Dale's Port, Claire and Aaron went over to Kira's house to rest there for the night. Elliot, a boy who was about a year younger than Kira and who had long brown hair and gray eyes, came to them at evening with some news.

"There's a call for travelers to come together and join in a battle with the Fedrinas Kingdom in the far east," Elliot said. "Apparently, they're at war with the Red Demon who dwells in Amerdoth, the shadow-lands."

"Fedrinas is quite far away," Claire replied. "We'd have to journey all the way back across the Highlands, Ranorn Forest, and the west Darylin Plains; then, at Nexus, we'll have to head south past the Laviel Hills."

"I know, but it also seems like a great opportunity for us to test our skills out in battle," Elliot said. "Where else shall we go if we depart on another journey?"

Claire shrugged. "Where do travelers go if they don't have a specific destination in mind, anyways?"

"See, that's the thing," Kira suddenly interrupted. "In this realm, there's always a quest for every traveler to partake in at any given time. For example, there's the battle against the Cube God up in the northern snow plains, as well as the Pentaract in the south. But right now, we don't have the skill to take on a Master God, obviously."

"So, are you saying that we _should_ go and join the kingdom in their battle against the Red Demon?" Aaron asked.

"Perhaps. If Elliot goes, I'll go. Will you two be following me?" Kira responded.

Claire sighed. "Yes. You're our friends, remember?"

"Then let's go!" Elliot exclaimed. "We'll set out tomorrow; I'm sure we'll meet up with plenty of other travelers along the way, so we won't have too much trouble with monsters."

"How strong are you, exactly?" Claire suddenly asked Elliot. "You're a warrior, right?"

"Well, I have a Golden Sword and a Black Iron Helm, and my armor is a Plate Mail and a Ring of Greater Attack. My skills in battle aren't that bad, either."

"You'll do fine with us, then," Claire said with a smile. "Though I don't really like the idea of joining a kingdom to go to war…how strong are Red Demons, exactly?"

"I'm not sure. Their army mostly consists of Gods; sometimes they can be easy to defeat, other times, it can be a gruesome battle of attrition," Kira replied.

 _Gods!?_ Claire thought. _I was hoping we'd be up against a slightly easier enemy…_

"Don't worry, we'll have an entire army of probably over a hundred fellow travelers fighting on our side. I'm sure we'll make it out okay."

 _A hundred's not much…though in this realm, it must definitely be a lot._

* * *

Over the course of the next week, Claire and her group journeyed eastwards back across the highlands, the forest, and the plains and arrived at the town of Nexus within five days. At that time, the war against the Red Demon had not yet begun, so they decided to take two days off to rest at the town. During this time, Claire sought out the house of Kathleen, the one where she had first woke up in when she entered this Realm.

The woman was there inside her house with a few guests; they all seemed quite confused and even a little bit scared. _Must be new to this Realm, too,_ Claire thought, coming to the conclusion that Kathleen's house must be where all the 'beginners' ended up.

"Hello," Kathleen said when she saw Claire enter her house.

"Hi, Kathleen," Claire replied. "I haven't seen you in over a week. How's _things_ going?"

To her surprise, the woman did not respond; instead, Kathleen simply walked over to her kitchen and grabbed some food, which she then handed out to her guests.

"What am I doing here?" One of the people sitting in the living room suddenly said out loud.

"No one knows," Claire responded. "The Mad God Oryx took us into this Realm to be food for his minions, and that's all we ever understand of this world."

"What!? We're gonna be eaten?"

"No. You'll get weapons, or magic; you'll learn to fight and survive. Never let yourself give up hope and die."

 _Okay…maybe that wasn't the most inspirational way to greet our newcomers into the Realm,_ Claire thought.

"Kathleen, what is there to know other than that!?" Claire suddenly yelled. "You told me to go out and explore this world for myself, and then maybe I'll 'understand more of it.' But I have not learned anything! I still don't remember my past at all."

"It's not the past that's important," Kathleen responded. "It's the present. And currently, the present takes place inside this Realm. This is the only world; the only one that you can remember. That's all there is to your past."

"But surely I must have had lived another life before I came into this realm!" Claire cried.

"That's insignificant. If you can't remember it, then how do you know that it ever existed?"

"It's not insignificant…is it?"

Kathleen looked up at Claire and smiled. "I don't know anything about the past. I only exist in the present; my memories don't tell me anything, or anything important."

 _This is absurd! How can anyone say that, to outright deny their own existence outside of the present!?_

"Indeed, I do not even understand why I was given this purpose of welcoming newcomers into the Realm," Kathleen said. "I simply do what I am told."

"Who tells you, then!?"

"…The Mad God. He appoints special power to certain people."

 _The Mad God, Oryx!? I thought that he wanted us all to be food for his minions! Could there be a greater purpose for our existence inside this realm?_

"Speak to him," Kathleen said. "Every once in a while the Mad God makes an appearance inside this Realm. Then you can ask him your questions…that is, if he's not too busy trying to kill you."

Claire sighed. _She's hiding something from me, I just know it!_

"How often does the Mad God appear?" Claire asked.

"Defeat all of his Greater Minions; mainly the Master Gods. Also the Red Demon and others such as the Lich, the Ghost King, Cyclops God, Ent Ancients, and Deathmages."

"That sounds like a lot of work." Claire did not stay any longer and immediately walked out of Kathleen's house.

She met the others at the local inn, where they were staying at; they were all getting packed up and ready to go.

"Leaving so soon?" Claire asked.

"Well, there's not much to do in this town," Elliot replied. "Let's get going on our journey."

"Alright, then."

From the inn, they departed southwards out of Nexus and arrived back upon the Darylin Plains. At around noon, they stopped to rest and eat lunch beneath the shade of a willow tree; it was a windy, and yet warm sunny day. All of a sudden, Aaron jumped to his feet and ran towards someone who was walking past them.

"Eilin!" Aaron yelled when he saw the archer boy. Eilin turned around and was indeed, quite surprised to find Aaron, Claire, and the others sitting nearby.

"Small world, isn't it?" Aaron said.

"That's because there aren't that many people in this Realm to begin with," Eilin replied. "You're heading towards the Kingdom of Fedrinas as well, I assume?"

"Yes. How did the battle go with the Cube God?"

"We couldn't kill it; about half of our group members died, so we turned around and retreated."

"Oh…I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I didn't really have any friends in that group, anyways."

"Well…wanna come with us, then?"

"Sure, I guess."

Aaron took Eilin back to his group, where the others greeted him with surprise; all except for Elliot, of course.

"Who's this person?" Elliot asked.

"A friend of ours," Aaron replied. "He…ummm, saved my life a while ago, when we fought the Medusa back at the Blue Woods."

"Oh, so you're the one who found the Medusa Venom!" Elliot exclaimed. "That means you saved my life, too, Eilin."

Eilin closed his eyes and sighed, looking a bit embarrassed. "I was just doing what I could to help you out."

"Well, you've done a lot for us!" Aaron said. "Once again, I have to thank you for saving me from that Medusa. I know it's a bit much, but I feel really, really indebted to you. If you need help with anything, then don't hesitate to ask!"

 _Aaron sure seems to have changed,_ Claire thought. _Before, he was a bit quiet; cynical, almost. He didn't like to rely on anyone for help, even though we were on the same journey together. But now…well, I guess having a near-death encounter with a Medusa could change anyone's perspective on life, really._

"Let's get going," Kira said. "It'll take us at least a day to cross the Laviel Hills. And I want to see the Blossom Tree along the way!"

"The Blossom Tree?" Claire asked. "What's that?"

"In the Laviel Hills, there's a particular grove where two magical trees reside. One bears leaves as white as snow, while the other tree has leaves that are black as tar. But their branches are completely intertwined with each other, and they form the shape of a blossoming rose. That's why I want to see it!"

 _Wow, how interesting,_ Claire thought. _I want to see it for myself, too!_

"Don't forget, though: the Hills are filled with powerful monsters," Aaron said. "We'll probably expect to fight a few Lesser Gods along the way."

"More practice for our skills, then!" Elliot replied.

For the next few hours, the party journeyed across the wide and hilly expanse of lands that stretched from the south of the Nexus to the eastern lowlands; there lay a swamp, and the kingdom-city of Ferrinas, upon its border. The Laviel Hills was a mountainous grassland region bordered by a forest to the north and the ocean to the south; between the forest and the hills was a small canyon, formed between the cliffs of nearby mountains, which the party decided to travel under. Here the land was dry and dirt-covered, with a few patches of lush grass here and there. The trees that grew upon the hills were largely maples and oaks, and some were turning slightly red and orange in colour; though the shifting of seasons was never an apparent phenomenon inside the realm.

Of course, their journey never went uninterrupted by the presence of hungry fiends. While journeying through the canyon, they eventually reached a small river which flowed out from the mountains southwards towards the ocean; along the way, it also crossed the base of the hill upon which the Blossom Tree grew. But as the party began following this river, they suddenly witnessed a peculiar sight: lying amongst the tall grass (comprised of reeds and cattails) growing alongside this river were a large cluster of massive white eggs.

"What are these things!?" Claire asked as she observed the eggs.

"White Dragon spawn. They aren't good to eat, unfortunately; we destroy them before its mother notices," Kira responded.

"Too late!"

Up ahead, there was a White Dragon — an enormous, twenty-foot tall creature with massive claws and scaly gray wings — flying down towards them. Following behind on its tail were some White Dragon Juveniles and even a Whelping. To Claire's surprise, it was the Juvenile that attacked first: a blast of fire came out from its mouth, which she just barely ducked.

Elliot lunged at the dragons and slashed a Juvenile with his sword immediately; the White Dragon spun around and furiously belched out three balls of flame towards him. Elliot was struck upon his chest by one of its attacks, but a healing spell from Aaron's tome instantly recovered his wound. Meanwhile, Kira quickly blasted the Whelping to death with her staff, and Claire finished off the other Juvenile using her Double Bow.

"Eilin, can you take down the White Dragon?" Elliot asked.

"Of course; this creature's not that powerful." To Claire's surprise, Eilin's Verdant Bow shot out _three_ arrows at once instead of two. To retaliate against the slaying of its offspring, the White Dragon attempted to belch out another ball of fire, but its attack was quickly stopped short by fifteen more arrows — and the dragon crashed dead to the floor.

 _That was quite impressive,_ Claire thought after the battle. _I wonder where I can find myself a bow that also shoots three arrows at once?_

After disposing of the eggs, they continued alongside the river until they arrived at the hill upon which the Blossom tree grew; Claire, Aaron, and Kira were both delighted when they saw it.

The two massive trees rested at the center of a small flower grove; they were surrounded by many rose-bearing bushes, as well as white tulips, purple orchids, and some daisies. The tree on the left bore only white leaves, which were long, thin, and oval-shaped; the other tree bore larger, round black leaves that almost resembled clovers. Together their branches intertwined in a most peculiar fashion; Claire could not see exactly what shape they formed, though the tangled leaves weaved the figure of a rose's petals when you looked at them from a certain perspective. There also seemed to be a space, located right at the center of the two trees, which was completely empty and untouched by any branch or leaf; and through it she could see the perfect orange dusk sunset.

"These trees couldn't have grown naturally, could they?" Aaron asked.

"No one knows how they were formed. I'll just leave it as that," Eilin replied.

Claire walked towards the trees; first the one on the left, to admire and touch its white leaves, and then the tree on the right to observe its peculiar, black, clover-shaped leaves.

 _How quaint…that such a wonderful beauty would exist in this Realm,_ Claire thought. _Surely it must be wrought of some strange and unknown magics._

There flew suddenly an arrow straight past Claire's face, missing her by barely an inch. "What!?" she cried.

"Can't we just go one day without having our moments interrupted by monsters!?" Kira yelled. "Watch out: behind you!"

 _Monsters? Hiding behind the Blossom Tree!?_

She suddenly found herself surrounded by the malicious purple-skinned, black-cloaked Night Elves; a queen prepared to blast her with a powerful spell from her wand. But fortunately, three quick arrows from Eilin's Verdant Bow took her out; Claire immediately ran away from the grove while a volley of arrows pursued after her. Aaron rushed to his friend's side to defend Claire from the approaching enemies; meanwhile Kira and Elliot charged forward to battle the elves head on.

"Are Night Elves strong?" Claire asked.

"I heard that their attacks are powerful; so we should stay back from them as far as possible." Just then, a bolt of blue magic whizzed by and nearly struck Claire upon her face again.

Kira took out two Night Elves with the magic from her Avenger staff; Elliot went after the Lizard God, who had been hiding behind the nearby bushes. He was quickly beaten back by five blasts of green magic from the lizard; then the Lesser God advanced forward and prepared to strike again. Eilin, however, was quick to take him down with a barrage of arrows from his Verdant bow; the Lizard God and its spawn of Night Elves each found an arrow in their throats before falling dead to the floor.

To Claire's surprise, the Lizard God left in its wake a sparkling cloud of magical dust after it perished; the cloud then merged with the creature's body to form a brown, cave-like entrance into some distant portal.

"What's that?" Aaron asked.

"A dungeon…I believe that this one's called the Snake Pit," Kira replied.

"I've never heard of it before, and 'Snake Pit' certainly doesn't sound like a very friendly place," Claire said. "Shall we enter?"

"If you want. The Snake Pit's one of the harder dungeons, actually. Lots of powerful enemies lurk within."

"Let's leave it, then," Elliot suggested. "I want to reach the kingdom as soon as possible."

"Wait! We'll be okay since Eilin's here with us, right?" Aaron said. "This dungeon sounds interesting. Perhaps, we should go check it out!"

 _Now you're putting a bit too much trust in Eilin…_ Claire thought. _He may have saved your life once, but that doesn't mean that he'll always be there to protect you._

"I don't mind either way," Eilin said. "I've never seen the Snake Pit before; if Aaron goes in, I guess I'll follow him."

"I'm not too sure about this," Kira protested. "Personally, I hate snakes; but that's just me. We may have to split up from here."

"Well, I'm going in!" Aaron said. "I'll see you later, then!" And he walked into the portal.

Claire sighed. _Did he REALLY have to do that? Well…I've never seen a dungeon before, either, so I suppose I'm interested._

"Bye, you two," Claire said, waving to Kira and Elliot. "I hope I'll see you when I reach the castle!" _That's IF I get out of this dungeon alive first._ And she walked into the portal as well, with Eilin following after her.

"We'll be fine on our own, right?" Elliot asked his sister. "The rest of the journey to Fedrinas Kingdom shouldn't be too difficult."

* * *

Claire opened her eyes to find herself standing inside a large, circular room; the walls, ceiling, and floor of this dungeon were light brown in colour and made of stone; brightly-lit torches hung all around the room. While some parts of the walls in this cave appeared quite solid, others looked like they were made of dirt and were slowly crumbling away. Aaron stood in front of Claire, while Eilin entered from the portal behind her.

"Where do we go now?" Claire asked.

"I believe we have to slowly break down the dirt walls of this dungeon," Eilin replied. "Let's try that one over there."

They assembled over to a nearby dirt wall that was beginning to crumble away, and with a few blasts of magic from Aaron's wand, the wall fell completely. There suddenly came an ominous hissing sound in the distance; Claire backed away just in time before she was bitten by a massive brown python.

"Ah!" Claire saw about five other snakes suddenly climb out from behind the dirt wall; they were all extremely agile and grossly huge. Without hesitation, she shot two arrows at them from her double bow, which managed to pin the snakes down but were unsuccessful in killing them. One of the pythons, which was red, darted out at Claire and slashed her knees with its fangs; Claire stepped back and quickly let Aaron heal her, while Eilin slaughtered the rest of the snakes with a barrage of arrows from his Verdant Bow.

"I'm beginning to hate this place already," Claire said. "Of all things, why did it have to be a snake pit!?"

They continued onwards to the next room; to Claire's immediate horror, she saw that the ground was literally covered in tiny little green and purple vipers. Aaron quickly backed away from this room, hiding himself behind Eilin.

"We're going to have to do this strategically," Eilin said. "I'll take care of all these snakes. You two rush to the next dirt wall and break it down!"

"Okay…just don't get bitten!"

They charged through the room; Claire and Aaron quickly spotted the dirt wall and began attacking it with their weapons, while Eilin blasted all of the tiny snakes slithering upon the ground with his arrows — or, a more conventional weapon: his foot. They never stopped coming, though; for sprawled throughout the room were many silver-barred cellars, and snakes were constantly coming out of them every few seconds. Soon the room was a whole mess of blood and crushed guts.

"We've broken the wall down — AHHH!" Aaron suddenly yelled. He saw hiding behind the dirt wall a monstrous green head; a greater pit snake charged out at him, biting the boy upon his arm. As Aaron shrieked in pain, Claire quickly pinned two arrows through the snake's eyes, blinding the creature before stomping it to death. But before Aaron could heal himself, four more snakes charged out at them from the next room; Eilin quickly turned around and diverted his attention towards the slaying of these pit snakes, who were a much greater danger than their tiny counterparts. Even he had some trouble taking them down, for they were huge and could take many hits; Claire noticed that there were two kinds of pit snakes; the stronger and bulkier green ones, and the smaller but deadlier purple ones. Due to the wide-spraying range of his Verdant Bow, Eilin was able to take the green ones down with much greater ease than the purple snakes; Claire helped kill the others with her Double Bow.

After the battle, the Snake Pit became an even _messier_ pile of blood and splattered bodies; the room smelled highly disgusting, and the next was no better, being — once again — full of tiny little snakes who were climbing out of nearby cellars. This time, there were two dirt walls that they could break down.

"The left one or the right?" Aaron asked, while stomping all the tiny vipers trying to bite his feet.

"Right — we'll try heading right first!" Eilin responded. They all began aiming their efforts towards breaking this third dirt wall down, only to be attacked by more Greater Pit Snakes who awaited them on the other side. This time, however, the group was ready; they all backed away from the wall as soon as it fell down, and greeted the charging snakes with a flurry of arrows. The monsters fell rather quickly, and Claire was only bitten once throughout the whole battle by one Greater viper who got too close; Aaron healed her immediately afterwards.

They were dismayed, however, to find that the next room led to a dead end.

"Damn, I was wrong," Eilin said, "Let's go try the wall on our left, then."

To their surprise, when they broke the other dirt wall down, they weren't attacked by any pit snakes. The next room was simply full of cellars, so the only fighting that they needed to do involved stomping; the room after that greeted them with a few pythons. Claire noticed that the pythons were smaller, but a lot faster than the pit snakes; she was unable to take them down efficiently with her arrows and had to let Eilin spray the monsters with his Verdant Bow. She was also surprised when she saw a red python open up its mouth and belch out a ball of fire towards her; she was struck upon her chest, but Aaron was quick to heal Claire before blasting the snake to death with his wand.

After that they came to another intersection; this time, they chose to head left first. The group was attacked by more Pit Snakes, but Claire was ready with her Huntress's Trap; it slowed a good number of them down for Eilin to shoot to death with his arrows. One of them dropped some Snake Oil: a smooth, whitish fluid that worked well in addressing bite wounds.

And so they continued onwards through many more rooms of the Snake Pit, amassing three more bottles of Snake Oil (totaling four in their inventory) as well as a Wand of Dark Magic (for Aaron) along the way. Eventually the group arrived into a large room that had three different dirt walls for them to take down.

"Let's try the one directly up ahead, first," Eilin said, "But our strategy for killing these snakes is taking a bit too long. Are you two familiar with the circling strategy?"

Claire and Aaron nodded in response.

"I've noticed that these snakes attack a bit blindly when we first take the walls down. To evade them, we simply have to sidestep out of the way. Then, inside of retreating back, let's charge right into the next room; they'll follow after us, and then we can use the circling technique to effectively take them all out."

"That sounds a bit dangerous, though," Claire replied. "What if more snakes are waiting for us in the next room?"

"True. I'll try the circling strategy out for myself; you two can stay behind and pick the snakes off from a distance if you want."

"Wait! I'll follow you," Aaron said. "I might need to heal you if you get hurt fighting all these snakes."

 _Huh!? Why is Aaron being so nice to Eilin?_ Claire thought. _Nevertheless, I don't want to miss out on the experience…_

After breaking down the dirt wall, they charged into the next room and were immediately attacked by six or seven pit snakes. The circling strategy worked surprisingly well; following their initial attack, the snakes began chasing after the group, blindly unaware of the arrows that were slowly picking them off one by one. At the end of the battle, Claire did not get bitten by the monsters even once.

"That worked surprisingly well," Claire commented. "A bit daring; but it works. Let's move on."

This room had another two dirt walls for them to break down; after trying both of them, they found only a bunch of dead ends as well as some pythons to fight. They returned back to the room with the three dirt walls, and this time broke through the one on their left: more pit snakes and more annoying cellars. Finally, there was only one path left for them to take: the one to their right.

To their surprise, not a single pit snake or python charged out at them when this wall fell down; off in the distance, however, there was a strange sound of the clanking of metals.

"Maybe the enemy got smarter, and decided to wait this time," Aaron said. He backed up against the wall and slowly approached the next room; he could feel the vibrations of the slithering snakes against the floor, and he raised his wand in anticipation for the upcoming battle. What he saw, however, not only frightened him, but made him relive a terrible enemy.

The haunting sight of this Medusa-look-alike, only with purple hair and body, made Aaron freeze in fright. What especially scared him were those green eyes, those same hypnotic reptilian eyes that seemed to grasp control of his body and diminish his waking senses; Aaron could not move when he saw Stheno the Snake Queen, master of this dungeon, slowly slither towards him; death was entailed in the gleam of the sharp metal swords that the creature held in its hands.

"Ssssss…Prepareee…to dieee…sssss…"

And his old memory of that near-death encounter flashed through his mind.

 _"_ _Dddelicioussss fooddd!"_

 _What?_

 _"_ _No!" The bolt of magic struck the creature, but the Medusa continued to advance forward._

 _Huh?_

 _This is it, then…I'm going to die…and become food for this horrendous creature. Oh…how pathetic…_

"Wake UP!"

Aaron broke out of his daze, only to find himself staring right in the face of the Snake Queen. Before he could move, he felt two Pit Snakes wrap themselves around his legs, completely immobilizing him; and then, the sharp swords of the Snake Queen flew towards his neck, ready to sink into his flesh.

There came suddenly a loud hiss from Stheno as three arrows struck her arm; she backed away in pain while the Pit Snakes loosened themselves from Aaron's legs, causing the boy to fall backwards. Eilin quickly caught him before he crashed onto the ground; then Aaron looked and saw that the Snake Queen was about to strike again.

Eilin threw him out of the way and took the hit from Stheno's swords, which sunk into his shoulder. But before the Snake Queen could attack again, he suddenly grabbed one of her swords and wrenched it out of her hand; Eilin then thrust the sword straight into her face and gave Stheno a hard kick with a yell of "You bastard!"

The Pit Snakes charged at Eilin and bit him a few times, but Claire's arrows held them at bay. Without hesitation, Aaron immediately cast a healing spell to help Eilin recover, but it was not strong enough; Eilin sank to the ground, grasping his shoulder in pain. Claire then darted into the room and quickly took out the rest of the Pit Snakes — there was about ten of them — with her circling strategy. Aaron finished off Stheno by blasting her head off with his wand.

"Eilin! Are you alright?" Aaron asked, rushing over to help his friend.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I just need to rest a bit." Aaron took out one bottle of snake oil and poured it over Eilin's wound to help heal him.

"What is wrong with you?" Claire asked when she came over. "Why did you just stand there when the Snake Queen came over to kill you?"

Aaron closed his eyes and tried to force back his tears. _Damn, I'm such a weakling!_ he thought to himself. _Why did I let that happen again?_

"It's okay," Eilin said. "We're both fine, now."

"It's not okay!" Aaron suddenly yelled out. "This is the second time you've saved my life, now. I honestly don't know how I should thank you!"

"Just let me rest. The Snake Queen dropped some good items, didn't she? Go and take them."

"You're not going to die, are you?"

"Of course not. That was just a minor wound."

Aaron closed his eyes and smiled tearfully. "I'm not going to leave you, though. I feel that I owe you too much."

Meanwhile, Claire went over to the Snake Queen's body, and retrieved from it a Snake Eye's Ring and a Snake Skin Shield.

"I've never seen these items before," Claire said. "I suppose I'll let you take the Ring, Aaron. None of us can use the shield, though."

"You're letting _me_ take the ring!? But…that eye…"

"Take it. You need to get over whatever fear you seem to have of these Medusa-like creatures."

Aaron took the Snake Eye Ring and observed it carefully: unlike the Medusa, the Snake Queen's eyes were green, not red. Its pupils were a sharp oval shape, like a reptile's, and they seemed to stare into his very soul; it haunted him.

…But he accepted it. The ring's magical powers made him slightly faster and stronger.

"Eilin, let's get out of here now," Aaron said. "There's the exit portal right up ahead."

With Aaron's help, Eilin stood up, and the three walked out of the dungeon together.


	6. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL VI

RotMG Novel: Chapter VI

The morning of the next day, Kira and Elliot arrived near the entrance of the Fedrinas Kingdom. To their surprise, it was not a castle at all; rather, simply a large town fortified by massive stone garrisons and four tall surrounding towers. Like all the other cities of this realm, it had no government; the town heralded no king or queen, or even a mayor of any sorts — it was run entirely by its citizens, most of which were travelers gearing up for war. At the kingdom's entrance was a wooden drawbridge, which had recently been lowered; a band of about fifteen or so travelers had just left the town and were departing eastwards past the Liavel Hills.

"Are those the travelers departing for war?" Elliot asked. "They seem a rather small group."

"Probably not; I wonder where they're going, though?"

Kira and Elliot rushed towards the group and confronted a Necromancer amongst them. "Where are you guys going?" Kira asked.

"We're heading to the Maduin Swamp to kill the Lich that dwells there."

"A Lich? I thought all the travelers were gathering together to slay a Red Demon!"

"Yes, that too; but first we have to take care of some of the weaker monsters guarding the Red Demon's domain as well."

 _A Lich shouldn't be very hard,_ Kira thought. _Even if it DID guard the Red Demon's territory, I don't see how a single Lich could impede an entire army that's marching off to war._

"How long is this journey going to take?" Elliot asked.

"We're only going to the swamp; about a day or so. Expect to encounter a lot of nasty monsters along the way, though!"

"Only a day? Kira, can we follow them, then?"

 _I don't see why not. If we go into town right now, then we'd have to sit around and wait for Claire and the others to arrive. This journey should give us something to do in the meantime._ Kira nodded.

They joined in with the group and began heading down a road that led southeast; it would leave the Liavel Hills behind and cross into the lowlands, along which they would encounter the swamp. The day was very warm, and the air rather humid; it was quite sunny and there was hardly a breeze in the air. _The swamp's gonna be terrible in this heat,_ Kira thought. She gazed up at the cloudless blue sky and wondered if it ever rained inside this Realm; of course, having only been in this world for a few weeks, she could not confirm anything.

At noon, they stopped by a small river to eat lunch. Kira sat down beside Elliot underneath a willow tree and began eating a sandwich; for a while, neither of them spoke. As usual, Kira found herself deep in thought while she ate. _I wonder if the others are okay? Well, since Eilin's with them, they're probably completely fine right now. Still, I'm worried; the Snake Pit is definitely amongst one of the harder dungeons. Will they make it out fine?_

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the tree. _And yet there's another thing that troubles me. Elliot…or, more specifically, his memory. He's been the only connection between me and my past after we came into this world. But now, he doesn't remember anything; it makes me feel so…distant. I want to know more about myself; more about the life that I had before Oryx took me into his Realm._

"Elliot," Kira suddenly said, "Have you still…no memory of our lives before we came into this Realm?"

The boy shook his head. "Not at all. Why do you ask?"

"Well…you know. The past is important; it lets us know who we are through our memories. Without it, I feel like I've just lost my very identity."

"But no one in this Realm remembers their past. We're just like everyone else, now."

Kira sighed; she stood up when she saw that the group was about to leave. "I was thinking; you can't possibly be the only one who can remember their past inside this world. There must be others out there; I want to find them, and maybe they'll tell us how we could recall our memories. And then, once we do…perhaps we'll even be able to discover a way to escape this Realm?"

"Getting out of this realm seems impossible to me," Elliot replied. "And even if there were people who still had memories of their past, I doubt they could in any way help us remember."

"I know. It's just a thought."

They finished eating their lunch and resumed their journey with the group. In the afternoon, Kira began to notice a drastic change in the scenery surrounding them as they followed the road into the swamp: the land became rockier and more barren; the grass was short and the floor very wet. Inside the lowlands, the trees were all deciduous but they grew from extremely tangled roots and their leaves were all long and drooping and almost web-shaped. The swamp could be compared to the likeness of a very damp forest: it was thick with trees and thorny bushes that were more often than not infested with insects. Hardly any flowers grew inside the swamp due to the overly wet and mossy soil; the place was somewhat of a drainage basin for all the rivers that ran through the lowlands, due to its closeness in proximity to the southern ocean. Because of this, much of the forest floor was covered in water, making several passages through the swamp to be impractical; fortunately the road (that they had been following earlier) still prevailed.

They marched on through the swamp mostly in silence; a silence that was, of course, frequently interrupted by the presence of enemies (and that was besides other noises made from various insects, such as crickets). When they reached the banks of a small creek, there came suddenly a yell from one of the group members further up ahead: "Monsters on the road!"

Quickly, Kira and Elliot ran towards the site of battle — and to their (somewhat humorous) surprise, found themselves fighting against several strange pink blob-like enemies as well as large green slimes. They posed more of an annoyance to the party than an actual danger; the blobs moved slowly but attacked in large groups, while the slimes were extremely numerous. Also there appeared sometimes a cluster of exploding black blobs who seemed to want to die by charging straight into the party. Usually a single arrow or the slash of a sword was enough to take them out, but when left unchecked, they burst into several balls of flame that were extremely difficult to dodge.

These creatures, were, of course, not the _real_ enemies that the group was afraid of.

Up ahead were some Flayer Gods: a large, pink crab-like creature with claws for arms and a curtain of tentacles covering its mouth. After disposing of the slimes and the blobs, the party charged towards it and immediately found their path blocked by the Lesser God's flayer minions; the weaker members of the group quickly took cover while blasts of magic were thrown overhead. The Knights, Paladins, and warriors (including Elliot) charged ahead to take the flayers head-on; meanwhile Kira stayed behind with a Necromancer to attack the Lesser God at a safe distance using their magic. She made extra care to watch out for the Flayer's 'Quiet' star, which it often threw at them to silence the group's spells. A nearby White Dragon joined in the middle of the battle, but it was quickly taken out by some archers.

The battle, fortunately, did not last long; only a few were injured during the fighting, so a Priest quickly tended to them with a healing spell. Afterwards, they continued heading down the road, and the rest of their journey remained uninterrupted from enemies until they reached the Lich's dwelling in the evening.

To their dismay, the place was surrounded by a group of Orcs: large, burly, pig-like creatures with ugly faces and green skin. As for the dwelling itself, the Lich's home resembled a massive blue and broken-down structure that may have once been a mansion; now, of course, it was home to an entire army of undead.

"We'll leave five of us to take down the Orcs," a Paladin suggested. "The rest of us will go inside the dwelling and kill the Lich; he won't be too hard to defeat, unless he somehow has a massive army waiting for us."

Elliot was amongst the volunteers who would go and kill the Orcs. The five charged ahead so that the enemies immediately saw them, and then led them off into the forest as a distraction so that they wouldn't see the main party.

The rest of the group then charged into the Lich's dwelling; already around ten or so undead were waiting for them inside. They were all mummies: rotting bodies and corpses covered up in white bandages; some of them wielded swords and knives, while others had staffs and wands. The Paladins quickly cast a heal spell upon the group, and then the party charged madly against their enemy; the undead stood no chance. Despite the Lich's yell of "You will drown in a sea of undead!", he was only able to bring out five more mummies before he was slain by an entourage of swords; Kira inflicted the final hit upon the Lich with her staff, blasting the monster's bones into pieces with a spell.

The Orc-hunting group returned a bit later, a few of them looking quite battered from their recent battle. Kira immediately approached Elliot and gave him a healing potion to allow him to recover his energy; he also had a small wound, a slight gash upon his forehead from (likely) an Orc-blade. The Potion was quickly able to stop his bleeding.

"Are you alright?" Kira asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Elliot replied. "That battle was quite easy, actually. How about you?"

Kira smiled. "I don't think the Lich even tried to win," she said jokingly. "Anyways, we're done here. Let's head back to the kingdom and out of this swamp."

"It's a long way, though; we'll have to journey throughout the night, and then we'll be all too tired to fight our _real_ battle tomorrow morning."

"Oh, I'm sure that the war against the Red Demon won't start for a few more days!" Kira responded.

They began the tiring trek back through the swamp.

* * *

The other group had made it to Fedrinas Kingdom at noon and learned that they wouldn't be fighting the Red Demon for another two days. They decided to rent a room at the town's local inn, which, incidentally, happened to almost be a _castle_ all by itself (whereas the kingdom clearly lacked one). The structure of the inn was tall and magnificent; inside, it had a marble hallway as well as a large, cafeteria-like dining room. The group proceeded up to the third floor and entered the room that they had rented (for a small sum of loot); it was surprisingly luxurious. The floor was covered by a red carpet, and there were two large beds. There was also a wooden drawer and closet as well as a washroom; inside was a sink, a mirror, and a large tub for bathing (also a bucket for toilet purposes, of course). Beside the beds was a table for eating; another for writing (there was an ink quill and some paper placed upon for it), and currently the first table held a jug of sunflower tea as well as some biscuits. Hung upon the walls of this room were, to Claire's great surprise, some pictures of art; she never knew that there existed any form of entertainment in this Realm other than fighting.

The first painting was a picture of a road bordered by elm trees; nothing special, just a pleasant setting. The second she recognized as the Blue Wood; it was a lake surrounded by teal-coloured trees, and a large crescent moon was reflected upon its waters. The third was just simply some stars, painted on a background of purple space; the fourth was a bit disturbing, and depicted a battle. A warrior, with a blue cross-shaped Mithril sword, was charging towards a Medusa; an archer stood beside him, ready to shoot an arrow from his bow; the landscape of this picture was dark and barren.

Claire plopped down upon her bed and let out a sigh of relief; she never knew that things inside this Realm could get so comfortable.

"Finally, some time for rest," Claire said. "I've been doing nothing but fighting for the last two days: the Snake Pit was torture. I'm glad we all got out of that place alive."

Aaron sat down beside her. "I'm sorry; it was my fault I dragged you into that dungeon."

"You've been doing nothing but apologizing since yesterday," Claire replied. "Really, I don't blame you for anything; I'm just happy that we're all safe."

"But Eilin…

The archer boy sat down on the other bed beside Claire's. "I'm okay; I think I've said that enough times already."

"How can you be okay after being stabbed by a _sword_!?" Aaron asked. "I still don't believe it."

"No, it's alright," Eilin replied, closing his eyes as he lay down upon the bed. "You don't need to worry so much about me."

Eilin's wound was strange; the sword had stabbed him to the bone. Normally such an injury would've been irreparable, but in this Realm, the existence of magic said otherwise. It would seem that any wound could be cured with a Healing potion or a Cleric's spell, unless the affliction occurred in some vital part of the body (such as the heart) that resulted in instant death.

"I'm just…concerned, that's all. Why shouldn't I be if you saved my life twice?"

Eilin turned around and gave Aaron a strange look. "You don't need to owe me anything, though. That's what you seem to have been trying to do all day."

"Well…I'm just really grateful."

"You can be grateful for me by learning how to survive another day inside this Realm. I don't need anything else from you."

 _Gee, Aaron looks disappointed,_ Claire thought. _It's not like he could hope to give Eilin anything that would help him in any way. After all, Eilin's a lot stronger than both of us…_

"Hey, Eilin…how long have you been inside this Realm?"

"Just under a month."

 _What!?_ "Only a month, and you're so strong already?"

"I'm not 'strong' at all," Eilin replied. "Most of the people inside this Realm are better than me, anyways."

"I don't think so. You're quite a bit more powerful in battle than any of us."

"It's only because I'm a bit more experienced," Eilin said. "I don't fight to survive; I fight to learn more about this world. Maybe even the nature of its people."

"And what have you learned?"

"Nothing much besides simple battle tactics. In almost any case, circling an enemy works best to defeat them — the only exception are Gods, of course."

"But what do you do _other_ than fight?" Aaron asked. "How else can you survive?"

"I'm not sure, exactly — that's what I'm trying to learn. There must be more to this world other than just fighting; I'll find it one day."

Eilin stood up and took off his equipment. "I think I'll go take a bath now."

 _I think I need one, too,_ Claire thought. _I haven't changed my clothes in over two weeks. Then again, does ANYONE do that in this Realm?_

"Go check out the town armory in the meantime. It's on the fifth floor of this inn; you might find some useful equipment there," Eilin said.

 _An armory?_ Claire thought. _That's definitely interesting._ "Aaron, let's go see it."

They went to the armory and found many stashes of equipment all piled up there; many appeared better than what they were currently using. Claire found herself a red Wyvern Skin armor, a gray Demonhunter's Trap stone, and an orange ring of Superior Dexterity; Aaron acquired an Illusionist's Robe as well as a white Spirit Salve Tome.

Later that day, Kira and Elliot returned and found Claire, Aaron, and Eilin inside their room after receiving some directions. Claire rejoiced upon seeing them again; then they spent the rest of the night, before they went to sleep, sharing tales of their journeys. For Claire, it was the adventure inside the Snake Pit; for Kira and Elliot, their quest into the swamp to kill the Lich.

"I'm glad you're alright," Kira said after all had been told. "I've been worried about you guys all day; but I never expected Eilin to be the one to get hurt after all this."

"It's my fault," Aaron replied. "For some reason, I get frightened every time I see a Medusa-like creature, and then I feel paralyzed." He lifted up his hand and observed the Snake-Eye ring that he wore upon his finger. "Maybe this will help me get over it."

"Hey, have you checked out the armory yet?" Claire asked. "We went there and found for ourselves a lot of decent equipment."

"Oh? I never noticed!" Kira said; currently, none of them were wearing their armor (for once!). Claire was in a long red dress (she had woken up into the Realm wearing it); Aaron wore a dark blue coat-like jacket, and Eilin was in a yellow long-sleeved plaid shirt.

Kira and Elliot returned minutes later with some new equipment. For Kira, a staff of Horror, a Destruction Sphere spell, and another Illusionist's Robe; for Elliot, some Mithril Armor, a Red Iron Helm, and a Ring of Superior Attack.

"I suppose we're all geared up and ready for battle now," Elliot said. "How much longer do we have to wait?"

"Two days, at most. Then we're marching off to fight the Red Demon," Claire replied.

"I hope we all make it out okay," Aaron said. "I've never fought in a war before, so I'm a bit scared."

"Let's not worry too much; it's getting late, so we should go to sleep," Elliot replied. "I'll volunteer to sleep on the floor. The rest of you will have to share beds."

Claire fell asleep almost as soon as she touched the bed. There was, however, one thought still lingering in her mind.

 _Eilin, I know what you're looking for. You say that you don't fight for survival, and I wholly agree with you. So what is it that you want?_ She sighed and stared up at the paintings on the wall in front of her. _It's what we all have in common, right? When we aren't fighting, we can create art to entertain ourselves. Sooner or later we'll find other ways to express our creativity, too, like music. All people — no, all humans — must know some form of entertainment in their lives._

 _And I hardly think that it's fighting, for me._

* * *

Over the next two days, the group stayed in the town of Fedrinas in anticipation of the impending war. During this time, they each split up to do numerous different things: Kira and Elliot frequently went out to follow other travelers around on their various journeys (specifically to hunt down monsters) in order to prepare themselves for the upcoming battle with the Red Demon. Claire and Aaron went exploring around town, mainly looking for the luxuries that the city offered; Claire was surprised to find that the kingdom had its very own art gallery, a museum of war (which housed many unique and powerful artifacts, such as a Seal of the Holy Warrior), and even a library that contained about a hundred books.

The books were mostly non-fiction and written about the history of the Realm, which extended no longer than twenty years (as far as most people remembered); various wars and battles, information about each town, and even the origins of the dungeons. Claire learned that the Pirate Cave, for example, was a hidden section of the Realm that had long ago been sealed off; it could only be accessed through the destruction of a creature that was connected to this seal, such as a pirate or a cube. The rest of the books (which were, of course, fiction) depicted imaginary journeys of made-up characters across the Realm and to the lands beyond (such as the unexplored oceans); of strange creatures that were mythical even by this realm's standards, and of a few tales of extraordinary romances. Eilin spent by far the most time reading books inside this library, much to Claire's surprise; she had not thought him to be the type to enjoy staying indoors. Though now she realized that Eilin actually had an intelligent, scholarly nature about him; he never talked much and preferred most of the time to be by itself. In some way he was a bit cold; pretentious, even.

Eventually, the day came when the battle would begin; there were about a hundred travelers assembled together inside the kingdom, and they were preparing to journey eastwards to Amerdoth, the domain of the Red Demon. It was not much of an organized war; there was no commander, no flag or banner to fight under, rather the group was simply a small company of travelers that were going on the same adventure together. Claire, Aaron, Kira, Elliot, and Eilin formed their own sub-group within the midst of the marching host.

"I'm surprised, Eilin, that you stayed with us," Claire mentioned as they departed from the town. "I thought you would have other friends in this Realm that you'd rather be with."

"Not really. I've mostly been journeying by myself since I entered this Realm."

 _Huh. That means we're his first friends, despite being much less experienced than him in battle,_ Claire thought.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Kira asked.

"A paladin told me that we're heading northwards, to the Thamasan Forest," Aaron replied. "Just the other day, a group of travelers were sent out eastwards into the swamp to kill the Lich that dwelt there. This was a ruse, to trick the Red Demon into thinking that we would enter his domain from the south."

 _Oh…so that's what the journey to the swamp was for,_ Kira thought.

"Anyways, the route north through Thamasan Forest is a bit longer, but it'll allow us to attack the Red Demon directly when we enter his territory, instead of having to fight through hordes of enemies."

"We're going to be encountering a lot of Gods, aren't we?" Elliot asked. "I've never fought one of them before. Are they strong?"

"Not if you know what you're doing," Aaron responded. "Just watch out for Medusas, and this one other creature called a Sprite God. Both of them are much more powerful than all the other Gods."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The rest of their day went by quite uneventfully. They reached the forest at around noon; there, Claire observed that the place was actually quite different from Ranorn Forest: it was a lot more tropical, though slightly denser; many strange plants and flowers grew inside these woods. There was a bush, for example, that had dark-green leaves spread out in the shape of a star, and at its center grew a red flower; also a huge cactus-like plant that somewhat resembled a purple aloe vera and bore similar jelly-like fruit. When they reached a river they found exotic yellow roses, white orchids, and orange lilies growing upon the thick undergrowth covering the shore; even some daisies and tulips that rarely grew in these temperate forests. The trees of this wood were mostly deciduous: elms, oaks, ash, birch, willows, and even some pink cherry trees.

Surprisingly, they encountered little monsters along the way other than some annoying critters such as stray bats, snakes, or goblins. Thus the day passed without too much trouble, except for four travelers that got lost inside the forest and did not return until dusk; the group climbed up a tall hill and chose a large plains-like clearing to break camp.

At dinner, around the campfire Kira decided to ask her friends the question that had been plaguing her mind all this time.

"Do you…do you guys think that there's a way for us to get out of this Realm, and to gain our memories back?"

Everyone suddenly turned to stare at her; there was silence, and Kira shifted her feet uncomfortably. Only Elliot refrained from making his sister feel too nervous; finally, Claire spoke up.

"I talked to Kathleen, that woman who greets all the newcomers into this realm."

"Oh! I know her!" Aaron responded. "She was a bit weird, but kind enough."

"She told me to seek out Oryx, the Mad God, to help us remember our past."

"That's absurd," Elliot replied. "Oryx was the one who took us into the Realm to be food for his minions. Why would he want to help us?"

Claire shook her head. "I'm not sure, but Kathleen said that he would have some answers for us."

"How do we find Oryx, then?" Aaron asked.

"He supposedly comes out when we slay every one of his greater minions: the Red Demon, or the Ghost King, for example; also his 'Master Gods,' such as the Pentaract."

"That might take a while," Aaron said, sighing. "I don't know: I don't think that Oryx will give us any answers. After all, wouldn't he be mad at the fact that we defeated all of his minions? He'd probably want to kill us all when that happens."

Claire kept silent; she really had no idea what to say to even reassure herself. "Eilin…" Claire suddenly said, "You've read a lot of books about the history of this Realm, haven't you? What's your say on all of this?"

"I'm not too sure myself. I've never seen Oryx before, nor do I ever want to."

"What about your memories, though? Don't you want to remember your past?"

"I can remember some of it. That's enough for me."

"Wait!" Kira suddenly jumped up from the ground. "You can actually remember some of your past? That's amazing! None of us here can even recall a single thing."

"Tell us about it," Aaron said. "What do you remember?"

Eilin gazed uncomfortably at everyone who was now staring at him. "Well, for one, fighting to survive was not a necessity in my world. Everyone also received an education, and they all had enough resources to live."

"I know that," Claire interrupted. "I think we all lived quite comfortably before we entered this Realm. In fact, I probably had no fighting skills at all before I came into this world."

"Me neither," Elliot said. "How _did_ we become so good at fighting, anyways?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's our weapons," Kira suggested. "Well, for one, I never had the choice to become a _wizard_ when I first woke up in this world. All of a sudden, I knew how to cast magic, and that was it."

"I never got the choice, either, to become a Huntress," Claire said. "I don't think any of us did. We all just woke up one day, received weapons from that Kathleen woman, and were forced to fight in order to survive."

Kira sighed, and then she lay her head down onto the grassy ground beneath her. "We're getting nowhere with this conversation," she said. "Well, if Kathleen says that Oryx will give us some information, then we might as well go and find him. Maybe pummel a few answers out of that bastard, too."

"Sometimes, I even wonder why we exist," Aaron said. "Our only purpose in this Realm is to fight to survive, or become food for Oryx's minions. Nothing more, nothing less."

"That's not true!" Claire replied. "I don't think humans are naturally savage; we don't take pleasure in killing others to survive. In just a few years, we have already created civilization inside this Realm: we also have art, and have written books, and done a lot of other things to further advance our society."

"Yeah, you're right. Maybe we don't have a purpose at all, and we were born only to…exist, I guess," Aaron said. He stretched and lay his head down onto the grass beside Kira. "I'm tired. We should go to sleep now."

The group nodded, and agreed upon the fact that nothing could be done now to answer their questions. They lay down beside the campfire and soon fell asleep under the veil of the glittering night stars.


	7. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL VII

RotMG Novel: Chapter VII

They arrived out of the forest and into Amerdoth the next day; here, the scenery of the Realm changed completely. The Shadow-Lands was devoid of all plant life; there grew no grass, trees, or flowers anywhere — instead the land was extremely barren and composed of a rocky black soil. Amerdoth was bordered by mountains to the east and the west; the entire region was covered by a thick, red, ash-like cloud which spewed out from a volcano located at the center of the Shadow-Lands. Also from it flowed forth streams of boiling lava, and they transcended all across the region until the rivers reached the ocean to the south (past the swamps) and the east; a few plants and trees grew near the edges of Amerdoth, but they were all gray and wilted.

"We make for the volcano," Kira said as they entered the Shadow-Lands. "It'll be a long and gruesome trek; the way will surely be guarded by many Gods of this Realm."

"Let's stay together and protect each other, then," Claire replied. "I want all of us to make it out of this battle alive."

The traveling group became alerted to the presence of Gods almost as soon as they entered the region: up ahead, there approached an Ent God, a Beholder, and a Djinn God. It was the Ent that attacked first: the massive Tree was at least fifty feet tall, and it had long, twisted, branch-like arms as well as two glowing yellow eyes; it moved by sliding its gnarled roots along the black, rocky ground.

 _Reminds me of that Ent Ancient back at Ranorn Forest,_ Claire thought.

The knights, paladins, and warriors immediately charged the Ent and began hacking away at the creature; the God retaliated by sending forth a wave of five yellow bolts of energy that struck each of its attackers and sent them retreating back towards the safety of their group. Then the archers raised their arrows — Claire and Eilin were too far back in the group to attack (at the current) — and the wizards began casting their spells. Soon, a volley of projectiles were flying towards the God; the Ent quickly countered with another blast of its magic, and the group was driven back once again. However, when the melee attackers charged a second time, the Ent had no chance to retaliate and was hewn to pieces by their swords.

Next came the Djinn God, along with the Beholder. The former was a massive blue genie, about four times the size of a normal man, and its legs took the ethereal form of a swirling blue tornado; the latter a giant black eye with brown tentacles hanging beneath the creature. The Djinn raised his hands and blasted forth five bolts of blue lightning; one archer was struck down and clerics immediately began chanting spells of healing. The group responded by sending another volley of arrows and magic towards the Djinn, but their efforts were soon divided by the approach of the Beholder, who charged right into the midst of the group. Perhaps a suicidal move on the God's part, for it was soon surrounded by dozens of slashing swords, but those who were unlucky enough to look directly into the Beholder's gaze suddenly found themselves to be temporarily blinded, and they retreated.

The Djinn struck again, and a third time, injuring many with its powerful spells of destruction before finally being slain by a score of arrows; meanwhile the Beholder slowly drove its way towards the center of the group, and its surrounding four (cardinal) shots of white energy kept many a warrior distant from attacking range. They were not even done with the Beholder yet when three more Gods attacked from the north: a Flying Brain, a Medusa, and another Djinn.

"Should we make a break for it?" Claire asked. "Didn't you say that in this Realm, sometimes it's better to run than to hold your ground against a score of enemies?"

"No, not when you're fighting Gods," Kira replied. "Running through a large group of them is suicidal — getting ambushed is even worse. We'd best stay here and wait until every God has been slain before proceeding onwards."

 _That will take a while, though,_ Claire thought.

In the north, the Djinn and the Medusa charged first, and the group became devastated by their attacks. Warriors and knights threw themselves in front of the Gods' path, but few managed to survive and hold their ground; the others quickly retreated to a nearby priest. Soon, the Gods were beginning to cut their way towards the center of the group, where Claire's group awaited.

"What do we do now!?" Aaron asked. He looked at the Medusa and felt fear rushing through him once more; taking a deep breath, he aimed his wand forward and prepared for the worst.

But the moment never came. The Beholder had just been slain and the rest of the group quickly rushed northwards, and the entourage of attacks managed to drive the Medusa back. Now came the Flying Brain, a huge red mass of fur with a single purple eye resting at the center of the creature's (barely distinguishable) forehead; like the Beholder, it attacked with four cardinal beams of energy, except with far greater speed. Soon the monster had cut an open circle around itself, for no warrior dared to stand within its attacking range, and arrows and spells were once again sent to take the creature out.

Not one of these three Gods had been taken out yet before two more arrived: a Slime and a Ghost God. Their combined attacks immediately divided up the group; half were to battle the Djinn, Medusa, and Flying Brain; the others were to charge ahead and take on the Slime and Ghost God. It did not take long before they were quickly driven back; the Slime God, a big brown disgusting pile of mud, attacked by sending a wave of five fireballs out of the many mouth-shaped orifices that grew upon its body; also by releasing a particularly odorous smell (reeking of sulfur) which worked by slowing down its attackers. Already two warriors had died, crushed under the massive body of the Slime God (which dissolved all that passed through it).

Claire's group joined in the battle against the Slime and Ghost Gods; unable to take the two creatures on in melee combat, everyone held back and the archers and wizards were sent forward. Soon the air was full of arrows; Kira and a Necromancer combined their spells together and blasted the Slime God into pieces with a powerful wave of magic. Then the Ghost God summoned up a fan of seven bolts of deadly white lightning, and three warriors were struck down (they were not dead; a priest healed them); a Rogue suddenly rushed forward and slashed the Ghost to 'death' — ironically — with his Ragetalon dagger.

 _Hey, I recognize him,_ Claire thought to herself. _It's Jonathan, the Rogue I met earlier in this Realm!_

There was suddenly a call from the group to the north: "A White Demon! Two more Medusas! We need help!"

 _Two Medusas!?_ Claire thought. _That might prove to be trouble._

But from the east came another two Gods: an Ent and their own White Demon to trouble them. Everyone fell back — Claire had to duck — as the Ent sent a wave of five yellow bolts of magic forward, and a Priest was incapacitated. Then the White Demon charged, and from his massively claws came several streaks of white lightning (much like the Ghost God's, but slightly stronger) along with a star-shaped ball of red energy. It flew right towards Claire and struck her across the face, and she fell to the ground, gasping in pain. Aaron quickly rushed to her side and cast a spell from his Spirit Salve tome to heal her wound.

"Thanks, Aaron," Claire said as she got back on her feet.

Eilin went forward and joined another Archer (who had a Golden Bow), and they both began shooting the two Gods down with their arrows; the Ent turned around and swiftly sent towards them another wave of powerful yellow magic. Eilin immediately ducked, and he managed to avoid the attack; then he rushed towards Claire and joined her side as they tried to drive the Gods back with a second barrage of arrows.

"Sometimes, when Gods die, they will drop Stat potions," Eilin said to Claire in the middle of the battle. "If you see one, quickly run towards it and drink the potion before the others notice. It'll make you a lot stronger."

"I'll keep that in mind," Claire responded.

There was a clash and a sudden howl of frightened voices; looking back, Claire saw that the groups had merged again, for the one fighting in the north had been driven back by the Medusas. Everyone yelled and dove for cover when they saw two red bombs fly over their heads: the Medusa's special attack was deadly. When the bombs exploded, the entire area cleared itself of any bodies, and all solid matter caught in the midst of the attack (small rocks and pebbles) instantly disintegrated; then the warriors resumed their attack. Before the two Medusas could strike again, they found several Mithril Swords aiming for their heads: they fell lifeless to the ground.

Claire turned around and shot one final arrow towards the White Demon, pitting it through the creature's neck and causing the monster to crash to the ground. Indeed, as Eilin had mentioned, she saw something drop from the creature's claws: a pink bottle of water. Claire picked it up and immediately drank the potion to quench her thirst; she suddenly noticed a slight increase in her mind's strength — a new-found fervor for battle that burned with a furious ardor (after drinking, that is).

The coast was clear; they could finally move on. Of course, they had already journeyed quite a distance through Amerdoth already (from all the running that they did during the battle), and were about a quarter of the way to the volcano at the Shadow-Land's center.

* * *

The battle went on throughout the whole day and into the night. About ten travelers had fallen since then; and yet the Gods kept on coming, and soon Claire found that she was too tired to continue fighting. So, she rejoined the center of the group and broke camp there; she would be surrounded by all the other travelers, so the spot was relatively secure — and safe enough for her to catch a few hours of sleep.

It was Eilin that came to wake her up. The group was moving on ahead; they now stood near the base of the volcano. However, there was trouble up ahead, and it was highly unexpected.

"What's a Skull Shrine?" Claire asked when she heard of this name.

"One of the Master Gods of this Realm. The Red Demon has this shrine guarding every corner of his domain; we must defeat it before we may proceed onwards."

Claire rubbed her eyes and stretched; she grabbed her weapons and ran to the front of the group, where the battle was taking place.

The Skull Shrine was not one creature, but rather a massive collection of similar head-shaped lifeforms. A giant cluster of blue skulls flew in a circle around the center of the shrine; up ahead were the red skulls, which guarded a colossal orange skull — it was at least the size of a house.

Here, there was not much of a battle taking place — more like a huge crowd of bodies huddling together to take cover from the Skull Shrine's attacks. Not one person could lay even a single foot into the shrine without being bombarded by a massive hail of fiery bullets. Up ahead, the blue skulls circled, searching for targets to blast around the perimeter of the battlefield.

"This is pathetic," Claire whispered. "We aren't gaining any ground are we?"

"You try charging into that minefield!" An Assassin answered. "You'd be dead before any priest notices you."

"Bullets incoming!" A paladin yelled as ten blue skulls came flying over the group, sending at them a shower of magical projectiles. Archers and wizards responded by launching their own attacks back at the skulls, but only a few were hit.

"Where are the others?" Claire asked.

"Kira, Aaron, and Elliot are fighting some Gods to the north," Eilin responded. "They're busy keeping other enemies away from us while we're dealing with the Skull Shrine."

"I think I'll go join them," Claire said. "We're not getting anywhere here by huddling around like rats."

Eilin nodded, and they departed northwards, heading up a hill and around the base of the volcano until they reached the site of the other battle. Currently, the group was dealing with a Medusa and a Sprite God — a bad combination. The Sprite Gods were tall, floating purple creatures that attacked by sending out five balls of powerful energy; sometimes, they were accompanied by an ethereal sickle that did not hurt, but rather drained the energy of all those that it touched.

"Glad you could make it," Aaron said when Claire approached the group. He looked extremely tired, and his long hair was covered in sweat.

"Take a break, Aaron," Claire replied. "I'll take over from here."

"No, I have to stay; I'm a priest. Everyone's depending on me to heal them when they're wounded."

"Oh…alright, then."

They ducked just in time as a Sprite God sent five purple balls of energy over their heads; then two other Gods arrived from the north, a Beholder and a Ghost. The group charged, and the paladins and warriors were able to overwhelm the Medusa and the Sprite God; from the west, however, suddenly came two ugly gremlin-like creatures. They were small and red, and had pointed ears and black bat-like wings, and were also dressed in golden armor.

"Demons," a nearby Rogue whispered. "The Red Demon's noticed us. It's coming down to attack."

"What do we do now!?" Claire asked.

"Our group's strong enough to take on the Red Demon's army by ourselves; but not with all these Gods attacking us at every corner. We have to call the others at the Skull Shrine back."

A group of ten were quickly formed to run to the site of the battle against the Skull Shrine and call the people there back. Eilin was amongst this group; Claire decided to stay with Aaron, Kira, and Elliot.

"Hold on!" Aaron yelled as he saw the group about to leave. "Eilin, wait up!"

"Why do you want to follow him for?"

Aaron looked at Claire and shrugged in response. "I don't know. I just feel safer if I'm with him." Without waiting for Claire to reply, he ran off.

 _Well, you don't always have to rely on him ALL the time,_ Claire thought to herself. _Nevertheless…_

The Demons attacked ferociously with their spells of fire. The group, however, mainly concentrated their efforts upon finishing the remaining Gods; the Beholder and the Ghost charged right into the center of the party, taking out two wizards along the way. Claire was quickly amongst three archers that shot the Beholder down with a barrage of arrows; as it fell, she noticed another item drop from its body: this time it was black in colour. She grabbed the potion and drank it; it had a bitter and (strangely) salty taste, but the liquid did seem to make her endurance grow slightly stronger.

As for the Demons, they were a bit weaker than the Gods, though they attacked a lot faster. The group was quickly driven back by their powerful spells of fire; then a warrior charged forward and suddenly took a Demon Mage's head right off with his sword — it was Elliot. A wave of magic and arrows finished the other.

"That was surprisingly brave of you," Kira said to her brother. "A bit reckless, though."

"Thanks. I was just getting a bit tired of how long this battle was taking."

Claire suddenly noticed that Elliot had sustained a wound upon his leg when he charged the Demons; his knee was bleeding in an area that had been badly burned.

"Elliot! Look at your leg; it's wounded," Claire said. "Take it easy from here. Kira, make sure to guard Elliot until a priest comes along."

Kira nodded, and she took Elliot to rest at the center of the group.

The other group arrived back about ten minutes later. The news was a bit different, this time, however:

"They've broken through the Skull Shrine!" A Paladin yelled. "All their efforts would go to waste if they retreated now, but they need reinforcements. Let's head over there instead!"

 _Looks like the Red Demon will have to wait,_ Claire thought.

Along with the rest of the party, she immediately ran back around the base of the mountain — a tiring trip to do all in one night, indeed — and met up with the Skull Shrine, which was about to collapse under the weight of this group's attack.

"One final attack!" A knight off in the distance yelled. "Priests and Paladins, heal everyone beside you! Don't falter this time — let's go destroy our enemy!"

Claire joined alongside Aaron as everyone charged straight into the Skull Shrine "minefield." There were so many bodies running forward that she barely knew where to attack — and healing spells were being thrown around every five seconds or so. A wave of fiery bullets flew over her head, but she managed to evade most of them; the melee attackers (knights, warriors, and paladins) quickly ran ahead to take out all the red and blue skulls.

Finally Claire reached the center of the Skull Shrine, where a fierce battle was taking place against the 'Master Skull'. Swords slashed, arrows flew, and spells struck; only a few were injured, while the Skull Shrine itself was steadily being whittled down. The group, however, met with fierce resistance: bodies were constantly being shuffled back and forth to avoid being struck by the 'Master Skull,' who attacked with powerful beams of purple magic; it was unwise to step too close to the creature, lest one wished to chance an early grave. Due to this newfound difficulty, the melee attackers could only strike at the Skull Shrine if they ambushed the creature from behind, and a hit-and-run battle tactic was adopted. Meanwhile, Claire stayed just behind the front lines, where she could shoot at the Skull Shrine with her arrows without being directly open to attack; twice, due to the shuffling of bodies, she was accidentally sent too far forward and was thus struck by the Skull Shrine's powerful magic. But fortunately, she was able to survive due to the constant healing of the priests; Kira and Eilin, both being ranged attackers, stood at this same position to aid Claire in her offense. The Skull Shrine had the annoying habit of frequently spawning more red skulls throughout the battle, but they were all quickly taken out by the group's persistent barrage of attacks.

Upon the final blow, the Skull Shrine suddenly exploded into a streaming pillar of fire and lights, and everyone backed away from its disintegrating carcass. A cluster of stat potions (thirty or so) was thrown into the group: instantly there were hands reaching out towards the sky as everyone attempted to grab at these precious items; Claire managed to catch an orange potion, which had a sour taste — but it helped to improve her dexterity a little bit. Beside her, Aaron caught and drank a black defense potion.

Then there was the run for the loot; when the Skull Shrine disappeared, it left behind a huge collection of powerful equipment. Claire was amongst the vigilant few who first noticed these items, and she immediately ran towards a purple Fey Bow, grabbing it before any other archer noticed. Kira found for herself a Shadow Magus Robe; the rest of the equipment were all gone within seconds.

The battle was not over yet, however; from the mountains, there suddenly came a huge roar — and the Red Demon could be seen charging down towards the group. An army of about ten smaller Demons surrounded him, and they walked upon lava.

 _The Skull Shrine is a Master God; it was much more powerful than this Red Demon,_ Claire thought. _This battle won't last very long._

And indeed, it did not, for the Red Demon had no Gods accompanying him. In an instant, everyone charged towards the creature, and they greeted the arrival of the Red Demon with a massive barrage of arrows and magical projectiles; the monster stood no chance. His army was slain within seconds; the Red Demon tried to retaliate by sending forth five streams of purple lightning towards the group, injuring only a few (that were quickly healed by Priests). Then a wizard cast a magic nova spell, and the Red Demon was blasted into ashes. He left, upon the lava which he stood, a treasure chest; it did not receive as much attention as the Skull Shrine's loot, but there was nevertheless a rush towards it as well.

Claire, however, found herself facing a slightly bigger problem.

"Where's Elliot?" Kira yelled in the aftermath of the battle; the group had dispersed around her, but her brother was nowhere to be found.

"I didn't see him during the battle," Claire replied. "If he's not here, we should probably go back to the site of the Skull Shrine to check."

"Good idea. What about Aaron and Eilin?"

"They're okay; I saw them with the main group about a minute ago, right after the Red Demon was slain."

"Alright, then."

They ran down the mountain to the place where they had fought the Skull Shrine — and were devastated by what they saw.

Elliot's body lay at the base of the hill, beside a tall boulder upon which a Sprite God stood; to his left was a river of flowing lava. Kira gasped when she saw her brother lying there, dead; due to the wound he had sustained upon his leg, he had not been able to run fast enough to keep up with the rest of the group, and was thus left behind as prey for the Gods.

"No…"

Claire's instantaneous reaction was sadness, and she felt extreme sympathy for her dear friend; the death of Elliot was a catastrophic loss to Kira.

"I'm sorry," Claire said. Kira fell to her knees and let her tears fall freely from her face; Claire put a hand upon her friend's shoulder, and then hugged her tightly. "I'm so sorry…"

"It can't be…" Kira whispered. "It just can't…" She could no longer speak; her breath came in muffled gasps, and now she was crying uncontrollably.

 _I can't believe it, either,_ Claire thought. *How could this be happening? Just one minute ago, we had won a great battle, and were cheering for our paramount victory. But now…Claire closed her eyes and rested her head upon Kira's shoulder. We had forgotten one thing. A dear friend, lost in the throes and ecstasies of battle, left behind by our carelessness.

 _A dear friend? Was Elliot really that dear to me? No, he was just a friend._

 _But he was Kira's brother, and Kira is an important friend to me. Her loss is my loss._

 _Were we…too selfish? Should I have looked out for every one of my friends during the battle?_

 _That's not possible. You can't possibly protect everyone all the time. Yet my friends have always been there for me: Kira, Aaron, Elliot, and Eilin._

 _It's just that.._

 _I feel like I've betrayed him. We all did. None of us tried to protect Elliot despite the fact that he was injured, and he died as a result of our selfishness._

 _…In this Realm, people really do come and go._

Claire sighed. Kira had stopped crying; but she was still sobbing quite heavily, and her eyes were completely red.

"I can't believe that he's gone…" Kira said shakily. "He was my brother. My only connection between this world and my past. And now…" She closed her eyes and let her head fall into her hands.

"I truly am sorry," Claire replied. She looked up at Elliot's dead body, and then at the Sprite God hovering over it.

 _None of us in this Realm had any hope. We were all alone, all stranded from our past without any memory…yet, Elliot was Kira's hope. They both shared the same past together, and in a way, this connected them more wholly than anything else could. To have this connection — this hope — severed…I can't imagine how painful it must be._

 _Damn this Realm, this stupid world._

 _Damn that Oryx. Why did he have to bring us here in the first place, to make us suffer so much?_

 _Damn our battles. Killing leads to nothing but fear and sorrow._

 _Damn his minions. They take everything away from us._

 _Damn all this killing._

 _DAMN THAT SPRITE GOD!_

Claire suddenly picked up her Fey Bow and charged towards the monster. Without regard for her own safety, she stepped right over Elliot's body, and looked the creature straight in the eye. The Sprite God responded by shooting her with five full blasts of powerful magic. Yet Claire ignored the pain, and she took out an arrow from her quiver. She threw her Demonhunter Trap forward, causing a blast of magic to appear beneath the God; then Claire shot out three arrows from her Fey Bow towards the monster, striking the Sprite God at point blank range. And she continued to do so, ignorant of her physical pain and her wounds, until the God finally fell, and it disintegrated into ashes at her feet.

 _I've avenged you, Elliot,_ Claire thought as she collapsed to her feet. She grabbed her arms, which were bleeding, and she shook with pain. _I know that this doesn't make up for my selfishness, Kira. I couldn't protect Elliot; but it was the best I could do._

Claire dropped, unconscious, onto the floor.

* * *

Aaron had arrived to the site of battle, and quickly healed Claire before she bled to death. They were all in a somber mood on the return journey to town.

Elliot's body was buried at the local graveyard in Fedrinas Kingdom.

Three days later, the news of the outcome of the war came out. It was, of course, successful — actually doubly so, since they managed to take out not only the Red Demon, but a Skull Shrine as well. There were about twenty-seven casualties sustained from the battle (Elliot was, of course, amongst that number); now only two Master Gods remained, the Pentaract and the Cube God. That meant the approach of Oryx was nigh, and everyone seemed cheerful of this news — to many, fighting the Mad God was a strange (and somewhat alien) pleasure.

"I don't want to find the Mad God so that I can fight him," Claire said on the last day of their stay at the town's inn. "I want to learn about my past. Kathleen said that he'll give me some answers, didn't she?"

The room was silent. Kira had not spoken much lately, due to the sadness that she suffered from the loss of her brother; Eilin was quiet (as usual), and Aaron did not know what to say.

Claire sighed. "What do we do now? Should we just wait for everyone to kill the last two Master Gods, and then search out Oryx when he arrives?"

"What good will that do?" Kira replied. "I don't think he'll tell us anything; even if he did, it would be completely pointless."

"Why?"

Kira closed her eyes. "I've come to…accept this world as my new home," she said. "It won't do any good for us to find a way to leave this world. Even if we returned back to our old lives, we still won't have any memory of our pasts."

"How do you know that, though?" Aaron asked.

"Suppose you did recall all memories of your former life. What if the world that we all came from is worse than this Realm?"

"She's right," Eilin suddenly said. "I still remember a bit of the world I came from. Our society was a lot more comfortable, yes; but that doesn't make it better than this Realm."

"What do you mean?" Claire asked.

"I've lived in this world for just over a month, and despite its harshness, I've grown used to my current lifestyle. It would be difficult for me to adapt back to my old life, now."

Kira sighed. "Eilin, what can you remember of society back in your past?"

"The technology was more advanced, but magic did not exist. Everyone received an education by going to a place of study — an academy, I believe — and we did not have to fight to survive. The economy was based on consumption of goods and products, and I remember we had to use something called money in order to buy our daily resources (such as food). To earn money, one had to work in a job for the benefit of society."

"That's quite a fair bit of information you remember," Claire replied. "What about your family?"

"I don't remember them much: only my mother, and a younger brother."

 _So he had a sibling, too,_ Kira thought. "Was life very comfortable?"

"To a certain extent. You had to work much more to survive than in this Realm, though."

"Work? What kind of work?"

"That varies for different people. It's a bit complicated, and I don't remember much of it."

"You got an education, right?" Claire asked. "What did you study?"

"A wide variety of things. Do you know what mathematics are?"

"Yes."

Eilin nodded, but he stopped speaking and simply leaned against the wall with his arms folded.

 _Education…_ Claire thought. _That sounds so familiar. I wonder if I came from a similar society, too?_

"Eilin is right about one thing," Kira said. "If I returned back to my old life right now, I would have a difficult time adapting. This Realm is my current home because I've grown used to it, and I won't be leaving this world anytime soon."

"So what will you be doing now?" Aaron asked.

"I don't know, actually. Where are you guys going?"

The room was silent; after about a minute or so, Eilin finally spoke up.

"I'm leaving this town at noon today to head back to my house at Tianris."

"Isn't that the village located south of the Nidel Mountains?" Claire asked. "You have some residency there?"

"Yes."

"Oh! Can I come with you?" Aaron asked, almost pleadingly.

"Sure, if you want…"

"Okay! I'm going!"

 _Well, Aaron seems excited,_ Claire thought. "I suppose I'll come, too; what route will you be taking?"

"First, south to Haragon Desert. Then west, to the Nidel Mountains; and from there, south again until we reach Tianris," Eilin replied.

"I'll come as well, if only to participate in the battle with the Pentaract at the Nidel Mountains," Kira said. "So, are we all going?"

"Yes, it would seem so," Claire responded.

And so, at noon that day, they set out southwards from the Liavel Hills, and reached the desert by nightfall.


	8. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL VIII

**RotMG Novel: Chapter VIII**

Claire had never actually seen a desert before; when they arrived there, she saw that what lay before her were miles and miles of endless yellow sand, stretching over a barren and rocky landscape that was bordered by huge mountains. The desert was actually a dry plateau region that lay in between the Nidel Mountains and the Liavel Hills; the vegetation here was scarce, with only a few shrubs, bushes, cacti, and the occasional palm tree growing out upon the sands. Also the sun was very hot, and the nights rather short but cold; their passage was along a mountainous route located near the southern edge of the desert, which was quite near to the ocean. Here, the landscape was not flat, and the party spent most of their journey climbing up and down hills; though still heading westwards on a steady ascent to the summit of the Nidel Mountains.

In contrast with the previous week of their adventures, the party's journey through the desert turned out quite uneventful. It was not without monsters, of course: but those that roamed the desert were rather weak in comparison to the Gods of the Realm. They encountered a few savage dwarves, and Claire found that the luxury of her Fey Bow was its quickness and efficiency in taking out large groups of enemies due to its three-way shot. She was still not as strong as Eilin, of course, even though her weapon was slightly better.

They also encountered another new and annoying enemy out in the desert: Sprites.

"What are these things?" Claire asked when she saw the tiny blue and red ball-shaped monsters flying about her. They had stopped in the middle of an oasis to take a quick drink, only to find their break interrupted by the presence of these bothersome creatures.

"Sprites," Kira responded. "The occasional spawn of a Sprite God. They wander all over the Realm, and are very fast and hard to hit; not too deadly, though. In fact, the Sprites are actually quite weak."

"Well, I've had enough of them." Claire grabbed her Fey Bow and turned around, immediately shooting at a blue sprite with a barrage of arrows. She then chased the rest of the Sprites all around the oasis until Claire had hunted each and every one of them down.

After the battle, they continued upon their journey westwards across the desert; that night, they slept under the cliffs of a small canyon (situated at the base of the southern mountains). On the second day, they encountered only a few more enemies: some slimes and blobs (the critters that Kira had fought back at the swamp); and also a few golems. None of these monsters were particularly difficult to deal with; there was, however, another obstacle of the desert that they had to overcome: a sandstorm.

While passing through some sand dunes, the party suddenly encountered a powerful wind; it appeared to be a dust tornado of sorts, which swirled around and collected much of the sand in its path, forming a massive yellow twister. It was very fast and nearly impossible to avoid, for these sandstorms appeared frequently and unexpectedly inside the desert. As they approached closer towards this mini-tornado, the wind began to sweep up much sand and dust into Claire's eyes, and she had to shield her face in order to keep them from stinging. The air was very dry, and all the sand swirling around her became difficult to bear.

"How long does this sandstorm last?" Claire asked; her voice sounded somewhat muffled in the cloak of the dusty storm.

 _Damn! Why did we ever walk into this sandstorm in the first place?_ Claire thought. _We should've seen it approach us in the distance; or are they unavoidable?_

"They go just as quickly as they come," Kira responded. Claire reached out to grab her hand to make sure that they did not get lost in the swirling storm; the others did the same. The wind was still increasing in speed; all the sand and dust now seemed to form almost a wall in their path, for it was very difficult to walk through this storm.

"How much longer is that!?" Aaron asked.

"About ten minutes." Claire groaned as she lowered her head and continued to shield her face with her free hand while she walked. She could hardly breathe; the air had never been so full of hot, dusty sand.

 _I wonder what causes these storms?_ Claire thought. _Probably because sand and windy days don't mix very well; though in this desert, that seems to be taken to the extreme…_

They held hands and continued walking very slowly through the storm, gaining only about a meter every five seconds; finally, after what seemed like an eternity of being bombarded by the dusty wind, the storm stopped and the air was calm again. The tornado disappeared behind them, and the party stepped out of the torrid veil of burning sand; the scorching sun was once again visible in a now blue and uncloaked sky.

 _I never want to go through that again,_ Claire thought to herself; she breathed in deeply some air, which was now less dry and dusty than it had been before.

"How often do those sandstorms occur inside this desert?" Aaron asked.

"Only about once every few days," Kira replied.

 _That's good,_ Claire thought. _We should be able to leave this desert by tomorrow; hopefully, we won't encounter any more sandstorms along the way._

And indeed, by noon of the third day of their journey, the party had arrived at the base of the Nidel Mountains; here, the land was still quite arid and dusty, and there prevailed a barren landscape — but at least all the sand had gone, replaced by moss and a few shreds of dry grass. Also, they would be beginning to make their ascent up the mountains, to the site of the battle with the Pentaract.

"How long will it take for us to cross these mountains?"

"Around two days; first we head for the Pentaract towers, and then we turn south to journey out of the mountains and towards the southern plains. Once we cross the Plateau Fields, we'll reach the town of Tianris," Kira replied. "Is that right, Eilin?"

Eilin nodded in response.

As they journeyed out of the desert, the threat of sandstorms became replaced by that of monsters, for the mountains were home to many dangerous creatures — not least amongst them the returning terror of Realm Gods.

First, they encountered some Undead Dwarves, who were the spawn of a large, gray-coloured, golem-like Lesser God. These dwarves had scaly blue skin, white hair, and fiendish red eyes; they attacked viciously and in large groups (much like Ogres and Night Elves) — fortunately, they were not too difficult to take out.

As for the Undead Dwarf God itself, it had the annoying habit of releasing a stench — similar to that of a Slime God's — which sometimes altered the senses of one who breathed it, and they would become confused by their surroundings. Once, Kira was struck by this status, and Aaron had to temporarily take her out of the battle in order to calm her down; meanwhile, Claire and Eilin finished the undead dwarves off with arrows from their triple shot bows.

When they went deeper into the mountains, the scenery changed completely. The landscape was no longer dry or arid, though it still remained quite barren — for the Nidel Mountains were tall and rocky, and had less to offer in terms of lush greenery than the Eoryun Highlands or the Liavel Hills.

The trees that grew here were mostly coniferous, such as pines or spruce; some cedar and poplar as well. There were also a few oak trees, but for some reason, many of them seemed to lack leaves (probably because they were deciduous); the mountain air was cold and chilly. Much of the flora that grew within this region was bizarre and wilted; one flower, for example, had black stems and bore blue, mushroom-shaped petals; they grew upon thorny purple reed-bushes.

Their adventure was not spared of the company of Gods, either; no sooner than the second day of their journey through the mountains was the party attacked by an Ent God, a Medusa, and a Flying Brain. They were nearing a Pentaract Tower — a tall, massive black structure with a jagged, spike-shaped roof — but before they could reach it, they were stopped by some enemies.

"The Medusa's our main worry, here," Kira said. "Let's use the circling technique to take them out."

"It won't work on the Flying Brain, though," Aaron responded. "How about we split up?"

Claire nodded. "Aaron, come with me. We'll lure the Medusa away from the other two Gods; then Eilin and Kira can go and finish them off."

Despite his well-known fear of Medusas, Aaron nodded and reluctantly followed. Claire approached the Medusa and quickly shot the creature with three arrows from her Fey Bow; then she began to run around the creature, darting back and forth in between trees to confuse the monster. The only thing that she was really worried about was the Medusa's bomb attack, and Claire made sure to check every few seconds if Aaron was keeping up with her; her experience with losing Elliot made her become much more protective of her friends.

It was Aaron who dealt the final attack upon the Medusa; he blasted the creature with his wand, and the God fell to the floor with an agonizing shriek.

 _Wow…this is the first time I actually managed to kill this monster. With Claire's help, of course; but still, I slew a Medusa!_ Aaron thought.

Then they rushed back to check on Eilin and Kira; the Ent God had fallen (burnt to ashes by Kira's Destruction Sphere Spell), but the Flying Brain was still alive. Claire quickly charged forward and shot the monster down with a flurry of arrows from her bow; since it was being attacked from both sides, the God had hardly any time to react before it was slain. Then Claire noticed the creature drop a pink stat potion onto the ground as it died, and she ran forward to pick it up.

"Hey, I found an attack potion!" Claire yelled. She turned around to face her friends, and then said, "Do anyone of you want it?"

Everyone shook their heads. "No, it's okay," Kira replied. "You can have it."

Claire nodded, and she quickly drank the potion, causing her to feel another increase in her strength.

Then they ran forward to take on the Pentaract. Already four other travelers were there: a Rogue, a Wizard, a Priest, and a Paladin, and they seemed to be busy hacking away at some object situated upon the front of the tower (at its base).

"Hey!" Kira yelled out. "How is the battle going?"

"We haven't made much progress in the past few weeks," the Paladin replied. "Just can't take down all five towers at once."

 _A few weeks!?_ Claire thought to herself. _I never knew that a battle in this Realm could take so long._

There was suddenly a massive explosion in the distance, and a cloud of fiery smoke went up into the air; it seemed to have come from the northwest of their current location.

"Tell me how the Pentaract works," Claire asked, perplexed by what had just occurred.

"The Pentaract is a massive field bordered by five towers. Each tower must be taken down within exactly one hour of the destruction of the first; otherwise, they'll all revive," Kira replied.

 _Interesting…_

"What about that explosion I just heard?

"The Pentaracts are constantly sending bombs towards the center of their field; incidentally,that also happens to be the place where all the loot is dropped when the Pentaract is destroyed."

The Rogue stepped forward. "We've been at this battle for weeks. At the current moment, three other towers have been destroyed; that means we have about an hour left to take this one out before they all revive."

Claire nodded. "Let's get going, then."

At the front base of the tower was a gleaming red eye, wreathed in flames and covered with streaks of electricity. It was the tower's control point; the eye monitored all of its actions. Also, streams of half-red and half-yellowish light seemed to be coming out of the peak of this tower; they were the beacons of magic that connected the Pentaract together. Claire learned that if the light was red, it meant that none of the other towers had been destroyed; if yellow, some were. Obviously, it was not hard to figure out that to destroy this tower, one simply had to strike at the Eye until it perished.

Not an easy thing to do when there were almost twenty other eye-minions charging at you.

Like the Sprites that had so annoyed Claire earlier, these eyes were extremely fast; they flew in constant circles around the Pentaract, launching blasts of electricity at any that approached the tower's control point. Since they were much easier for Archers to take out, Claire and Eilin began to concentrate their efforts upon doing so, while all the others rushed towards the eye and began slashing at it.

During the battle, one of the streams of light coming out of the tower suddenly turned yellow; Kira noticed this and ran towards Claire to tell her of the news.

"A fourth Pentaract tower has fallen!" Kira yelled. "That means this is the last one."

Claire nodded; she turned around and was suddenly zapped by a streak of white lightning a nearby eye had shot at her. "OUCH!" she yelled, grasping at her leg in pain (where she had been struck).

"Are you okay?" Kira asked.

"Watch out!"

Another eye came from behind, but before the creature could attack Kira, an arrow from Eilin's bow struck it down.

"Don't worry about me; I'll be fine," Claire said. "How much time do we have left to take this tower down?"

"About half an hour."

"That sounds good. We should be able to destroy the final tower — as long as we don't get slowed down too much by these annoying eyes." Claire ducked as two more eyes flew above her, blasting the floor at her feet with several bolts of lightning.

They had more than enough time; the red control Eye of this Pentaract tower was already weakened, and it would not be able to take much more damage. For this reason, some suddenly started to turn around and run away from this tower, in a northerly direction, towards the center of the Pentaract field.

"Where are they going!?" Aaron asked.

"Typical. They expect us to finish the Pentaract off, and then they'll be closer towards the loot," the Paladin said. "Well, I might as well complete the job."

"Wait! That's not fair!" Claire cried. "Just how far away will the loot be?"

"Maybe five or so kilometers," Eilin answered. "That's a long enough distance for you to catch up, if you can run fast."

"Well, I don't care about the loot," Claire replied. "I just want it to be fair for everyone else."

"What do you mean?" Aaron asked.

"I'll stay here and destroy this tower. Meanwhile, the rest of you go after the loot; we'll probably defeat the Pentaract before you reach the center, anyways."

Aaron seemed reluctant to do this. "Will you be alright, Claire? I can stay here, if you want; the loot's not all that important to me, either."

"I'll be okay. There are others staying with me, too."

Aaron nodded, and then he, Kira, and Eilin ran off towards the center of the Pentaract as well.

The rest of the battle did not last long. In about ten minutes, the group — consisting now of Claire, the Rogue, and the Paladin — finally managed to destroy the Eye, and with it, the rest of the tower as well as the Pentaract. Instantly the streams of magical energy disappeared, and the tower exploded into a burst of shining light; it then disintegrated away into dust.

After the battle, Claire hurried after the others; she arrived at the center of the Pentaract-field (about an hour later) to find Aaron, Kira, and Eilin waiting for them there with all their new loot. Aaron wore a violet Moon Wizard's robe; Kira brandished a Staff of Necrotic Arcana, and Eilin had acquired a Golden Quiver.

Aaron came up to Claire holding two stat pots in his hands; one was red (Vitality), the other green (Speed).

"I saved these for you," Aaron said. "Most of the other pots were already gone by the time we arrived here, unfortunately."

"If they are the only ones left, then you can have them," Claire responded.

"Really!? I'm willing to share, if you want."

"No, it's okay."

Aaron nodded, and he drank the two potions.

Afterwards, they sat down to have lunch; due to all the magical bombs that the Pentaract had dropped upon this area, the mountains (in this region) had mostly been leveled and the area was flat, resembling a plateau (or a clearing).

"That's two Master Gods down, one more to go," Claire said. "We always seem to arrive just when the important stuff happens, huh?"

Kira nodded. "We're just lucky, I guess."

They ate on mostly in silence. Then, when they had finished and were preparing to depart, Claire asked, "So we're heading south now to the town of Tianris?"

The group nodded in response.

"How long will it take for us to arrive there?"

"About three more days…" Eilin answered. "The journey won't be too difficult once we get out of these mountains."

She nodded, and as they went upon their way, Claire began thinking to herself.

 _We're getting closer to the Oryx encounter far quicker than I had imagined. Maybe a bit…TOO quickly. I still haven't thought of what I should ask when I meet the mad God…IF I meet him, that is; and that's only if he's not too busy trying to kill me. Even then, what will he tell me? What CAN he tell? Kathleen said that he has some answers for me…but what kind of answers will they be? Is it about my past? She closed her eyes and sighed._

 _And what will I do, if I'm not ready to face these answers?_

* * *

The next few days passed by rather uneventfully; once they had left the mountains (without having to fight any more Gods, thankfully) the group arrived upon the Plateau Fields, a relatively 'tame' section of the Realm, much like the West Darylin Plains, that was not inhabited by any powerful enemies. Thus they were able to journey relatively safely across the plains until they reached the port town of Tianris (located beside the southern ocean).

It was much like the town of Dale's Port, only a bit smaller and thus not as "industrialized"; it did not have many big buildings, and the streets were not as crowded. If tourism was taken into account, Tianris did not have much to see, either; though there was still a dock that housed many fishing boats and even a rather large ship. Also, the town had some familiar shops such as an equipment store, a marketplace, and an inn.

Eilin's place was located upon the east side of town; it was small and only had about four rooms (the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and the bedroom); near the front porch grew a tall cedar tree, and in the backyard there was a flower garden (populated by mostly orchids and some lilacs).

"Well, here's where I live," Eilin said, and he opened the front door with a key that he retrieved out of his backpack. The party went inside and saw that there was a couch in the living room, and the floor was carpeted; nearby some chairs was a bookshelf, upon which were placed a few books — and, to Claire's surprise, two musical instruments: a violin and a wooden flute. Also, a painting was hung up on the walls of this room: the picture depicted a river flowing through a grassy and mountainous landscape, and it was lined with pink cherry trees.

"Nice house," Kira commented; "Where did you find it, exactly?"

"There are lots of uninhabited houses in this town," Eilin replied. "I simply talked to its previous owner, who was moving away, and he gave me the key to his house."

"Oh, I see."

Claire walked towards the bookshelf and examined first the musical instruments, and then the books placed upon it. There were six in total, and they were titled:

 _A Sword's Honour_  
*Restoration of Pride*  
 _The Price of Dreams_  
*Marcus and Julia*  
 _Breath of Darkness_  
*The Lurking Menace*

"You own these books?" Claire asked, and Eilin nodded in response. She then picked up _Marcus and Julia_ and read its synopsis.

 _Oh…it's a love story,_ Claire realized. _Kinda hard to believe you'd find one inside this Realm. Well, I suppose the sky's the limit when it comes to writing…_

"What about these instruments?" Claire asked. "Where did you find them?"

"I bought them at a local store in this town."

"They have a music shop!?"

"Yes. Why not?"

Claire smiled. _So people CAN find joy and happiness in this Realm outside of fighting, through entertainment…Why'd I ever doubt it? If they have art and books, why not music?_

"Can you play them?" Aaron asked.

"I know a few songs on the violin; I'm still learning the flute," Eilin replied. "Well, if you want, I'll play you something."

He grabbed the violin and its bowstring and began playing a semi-fast song that sounded sad in a melancholic type of way; as of nostalgia and reminiscence, but it was not depressing. When Eilin was done, they clapped for him, and then the group sat down upon the couch in the living room to discuss things.

"How long have you been living here?" Kira asked.

"Only about a week or so," Eilin replied.

"Are you going to be staying here for the time being?"

Eilin nodded in response; then he stood up and went over to the kitchen. "I'll go make dinner; you can stay here this evening," he said.

 _Just this evening?_ Claire thought. _Where are we going to sleep tonight, then?_

"You mean we can't stay!?" Aaron asked, voicing out Claire's thoughts.

"Well, no, I only have one bed," Eilin replied. "You'll have to stay at the local inn for the night."

That afternoon, they had bread and cheese, steamed fish, and some string beans for dinner; the group ate mostly in silence, for none of them really knew what to say. Claire was reminded of her visit to Kira's house back in Dale's Port, and they had eaten dinner there, too; except that she had more than one bed, so they were able to stay for the night. It was not the problem of where they would sleep, however, that troubled her — after all, there was the inn — but now she found herself worrying over a much bigger issue: what she would do next.

After dinner, they helped Eilin wash their plates and the dishes; then they sat down again at the living room to talk.

"So, what now?" Claire asked simply.

There was no response; everyone remained silent.

"What do we do now?" Claire asked again. "Do we simply stop our journey here? Or should we move on?"

Aaron turned towards Eilin. "Will you really be staying here?" He asked.

"Yes, probably."

"You have enough food here to last you a while, don't you?" Kira said. "So you don't need to go out hunting for loot."

Eilin nodded, and once again there was silence. No one really knew what to say, and there was an uneasiness in the air: for all knew now of what would come next: their inevitable 'goodbye' to Eilin.

"We probably won't be staying in this town…" Kira said. "Our journey will have to continue."

"Where?" Claire asked.

"There's only one thing left to do before Oryx arrives," Aaron replied. "Slay the Cube God."

Claire sighed. "It's still residing in the Lefran Snow Plains, isn't it? We'll need to go west again."

"Why?" Aaron asked. "I'm sure there are already enough travelers there to take this creature out. We could just stay here and wait for Oryx to come out."

 _And THEN what!?_ Claire thought. _What good will Oryx do? There'll just be a massive battle, and then we either win or lose. Both ways won't lead to anything beneficial…will they?_

"I want to see Oryx," Claire said. "I want to find him, but I also wish to avoid battle entirely. I just want to ask him questions, about this Realm and my past…"

"It won't do any good," Kira replied. "He won't…he probably won't tell us anything."

 _She's still depressed about her brother's death,_ Claire thought. _And I don't blame her._

"But still, I should at least try," Claire said. "You know, there's one thing that I don't understand about this Realm. If Oryx brought us here only to be food for his minions, then why doesn't he just lock us all up and take away our weapons?" She shook her head. "No, I believe that we're in here for a greater purpose. I just…I just don't know what it is. But in the meantime, I'll set myself a goal: this way, I will have a reason to survive."

The room was again silent; everyone now stared at Claire.

"Don't you have goals, too? What do you want to accomplish in this Realm?"

"I just want to learn about my past, too," Aaron said. "Even if it doesn't help me in any way, I still just want to find out, because…well, I feel like my past gives me my identity."

"But how do you know that Oryx will help you at all?" Kira asked.

"Kathleen says so," Claire replied. "She said that he'll give us some answers. Answers to what, I don't know, but she told me to seek him out."

"So what do we do in the meantime?"

Claire shook her head. "I don't know how long it'll take for the other travelers in this Realm to kill the Cube God. But in the meantime, I think I should train myself to become stronger, in preparation for my encounter with Oryx."

"I'll follow you, then," Kira said. She closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm just…I just know that Oryx, no matter what he says; he won't be able to bring my brother back. But if there's hope…if he can even give us one hint about our pasts, about our identities…then I want to see him, too."

Aaron nodded in agreement.

"So it's decided," Claire said. "We're leaving this town to train ourselves to become stronger. I suggest we go after this Cube God after all, so that we'll receive some further experience in battle."

"Alright, then," Kira replied. "Let's head west. To catch up to the other travelers, we'll leave tonight."

They all packed up their items and put on their equipment, preparing to set out upon their newest journey.

"So you really won't be following us, then?" Claire asked Eilin.

"No."

Claire nodded. _I understand. Unlike the rest of us, Eilin knows his past, so at least he has an idea of his identity. That's why he doesn't need to see Oryx…_

She waved goodbye to Eilin as she exited the house. As Aaron was about to leave, he suddenly turned around and stared longingly at his friend. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed.

"I might not see you again," Aaron said. "In this realm, anything can happen."

"I understand that," Eilin replied.

Aaron stepped forward and, to Eilin's surprise, reached out his hand. The other boy took it, and they shook hands together.

"It's been a pleasure knowing you," Aaron said. "Well, farewell, then. Goodbye." He turned around and left the house.

* * *

Not five minutes later, Eilin came running after them, with two items in hand.

"Wait!" Eilin called. "I forgot to give you something."

The others stopped, and Eilin came forward to present to Kira a Magic Nova Spell, and to Claire a Ring of Exalted Dexterity.

"Wow! These are some really good items!" Claire said as she put on her new ring. "Where did you acquire them?'

"From some various journeys," Eilin replied. "But I don't need these items anymore, so you can have them."

Claire nodded. "Thanks!"

"Also," Eilin continued. "Would you mind if I went with you?"

"Of course not!" Aaron replied, and he looked suddenly cheerful. "We'd love to have you back in our group."

"Why the change of heart, though?" Kira asked.

Eilin smiled shyly at Aaron. "I figured I'd come along since you're hunting after the Cube God. If you remember, I was there fighting against this creature on my previous journey back at the Blue Wood, but we couldn't defeat him. I wouldn't mind trying again a second time."

"That's great!" Claire exclaimed. "Welcome back, Eilin." _Although I know that the main reason why you've decided to come along after all is because we're your friends, and you want to stay with us,_ she thought with a smile.

They set off to the west.


	9. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL IX

**RotMG Novel: Chapter IX**

Over the course of the next week, the party journeyed northwards past the Nidel Mountains to reach the Darylin Plains; from there, they departed west through Ranorn Forest again until they arrived back upon the Eoryun Highlands.

Though not by a very palpable margin, the Highlands was now noticeably busier and more full of travelers than before; some were departing eastwards to reach the Nexus (in preparation for the impending encounter with Oryx), others were going north to participate in the battle against the Cube God. The party decided to return to the Enlian Cataract and see if there was another group that they could join with to head off into the Blue Wood; unfortunately, the cataract was empty of any travelers when they reached the place that afternoon.

"I guess we're late," Claire said when they arrived at the massive waterfall. "Everyone must already be at the battle site. We might not catch up with them in time."

"I don't want to miss the battle, though," Kira responded. "If that happens to be the case, then we'll have just wasted a whole week journeying our way here."

Claire stepped out farther towards the edge of the cataract; it was surrounded by large hills near its southern frontiers, which sloped down towards the shores of the waters below. The waterfall was formed by a river that cascaded in from the north; it then plunged down a steep cliff stretching over a kilometer wide (and was nearly half that in height), before flowing out south towards the ocean bordering Dale's Port.

Claire had been in this Realm for just over a month now; she learned that in this world, it never rained. The splashing water upon her face (from the waterfall) was thus a refreshing treat, and it cooled her mind and body after their tiring journey across the highlands during the day. She opened up her eyes and looked up at the dusk sky; it was a brownish gray in colour, with wisps of clouds floating in the distance; the Realm's large moon, a bluish white in colour, was beginning to appear as night's veil descended over the world.

 _This Realm is such a small world,_ Claire thought. This realization had come to her all of a sudden, as she stood out upon the cliffs at the edge of the Cataract. _In just a few weeks, I have already journeyed across the entire land. The only part of the Realm that I haven't visited yet is the Blue Woods, and the snow plains of the north…_

Claire turned around to face the others. "We're going to fight the Cube God, regardless," she said. "I don't want to have come all the way here for nothing; even so, I still would like to explore every region of this Realm — and the only place that I haven't been to yet is the snow plains of the north."

"What if the battle's already over, though?" Kira asked. "What do we do, then?"

"I guess we just head back," Claire replied. "Oryx will appear at the Nexus, right?"

Aaron nodded. "Yes, I believe so. And he'll wait about a week before coming to see us, so we'll have time to return to the town."

 _In the meantime, I better think of what I should say to Oryx when he appears,_ Claire thought.

They departed northwards from the cataract, following the same route that they had taken earlier on their last journey to reach the Snow Plains. At around nightfall, the party arrived near the ruins of their old campsite (where they had been ambushed by monsters); from there, they departed east to head towards the Blue Wood.

Along the way, as they journeyed up a hill, Claire noticed something off in the distance: a large, round, fortress-shaped building that lay in crumbling ruins. Huh. I didn't see this structure when we journeyed through this place before. Probably because my group was too busy running away from monsters…

"What's that?" Claire asked.

Everyone stopped and turned around to stare at her. Then Kira stepped forward and said, "It's the lair of the Ghost King."

"What!?"

"You don't remember? They're another one of Oryx's Greater Minions, like Deathmages or Liches."

"Oh. Well, then, the Ghost King must already be defeated, right?"

"If it isn't, then we have ourselves another job to do before Oryx comes out," Aaron responded, sighing. "Well, as long as don't get attacked by any Gods while we're fighting this creature, then we should be fine."

"Wait. You're actually thinking of going there to fight this monster?" Kira asked. "I'm sure the Ghost King is already long gone."

Much to Kira's (ironic) displeasure, the presence of a few bluish creatures floating around the ruins said otherwise.

"Those are ghosts, aren't they?" Aaron replied. "Their king must still be alive, then."

"Are Ghost Kings powerful?" Claire asked as they made their way towards the ruins.

"Well, we've fought and defeated a Red Demon and two Master Gods already. This battle should be a cinch," Aaron replied.

The Ghost soldiers attacked first; as soon as they saw the approaching party, the undead archers charged forward and sent a wave of arrows after them. Claire immediately ducked and fell flat to the floor to avoid being struck; then, before they could attack again, she jumped to her feet and unleashed a barrage of arrows back at the ghosts in retaliation. With Eilin's help, their ranged offensive was able to drive all the ghosts back into the ruins.

"The Ghost King's right up ahead," Kira said. "Let's destroy him as quickly as possible before he spawns any more undead."

The inside of the ruins was a circular chamber with a low roof; debris lay everywhere around the room. The Ghost King was a tall, ethereal, skeleton-like being dressed in ragged green robes; he also wore a golden crown. The creature stepped forward and unveiled a scepter from his cloak; waving it through the air, about a dozen or so undead soldiers were summoned into the room.

However, they were no match for the party's strength; a wave of arrows from Claire's Fey Bow took the ghosts out before they could even attack. The remaining ones began to surround their king in an attempt to defend him, but ended up falling right into Kira's Trap. She stepped forward and cast the wizard's penultimate spell, the Magic Nova: instantly a comet-shaped ball of energy crashed through the ceiling of the room, exploding on top of the Ghost King into several streams of powerful white lightning. All of the undead were instantly annihilated; and then a few blasts of magic from Kira's staff finished the king off.

To the party's surprise, the Ghost King left behind a familiar-looking brown cave-like portal (upon its body) after it was slain; no doubt the entrance into another dungeon.

"Which one is it this time?" Aaron asked.

"Undead Lair, I believe," Kira responded. "One of the longer dungeons, though the enemies in there aren't very powerful. Shall we enter?"

 _Hmmm…this could be an excellent opportunity for us to acquire some new loot,_ Claire thought. _Though I really don't want to chance missing out on the battle with the Cube God…_

"Well, if this dungeon doesn't take more than a few hours for us to complete, then I don't see the harm in checking it out," Claire said.

"We should go in. I heard that the master of the Undead Lair, the Ghost God, has some really good loot on him," Kira replied.

Claire nodded. "Let's go in, then." They entered the portal.

* * *

Claire opened up her eyes to find herself standing inside a dimly lit, gray room with crumbling stone walls and a high ceiling; there was an overpowering stench of rot and decay in the air. The others came in right after her; the only exit out of this room was to go southwards.

The party headed down this hall, which turned sharply to the left and then arrived into a large, open square room; almost immediately they encountered some enemies: they were a few skeletons and zombies, the same undead that Claire remembered fighting back at the Deathmage's graveyard. Of course, compared to her now, they were pathetic; one shot from her bow instantly reduced their bones to dust.

Like the Snake Pit, it was not the difficulty of the monsters that made this dungeon difficult; rather it was the quantity of enemies that they had to fight. Most of the creatures in the Undead Lair, however, were rather easy to defeat; the party hardly paid any attention to what they were killing and simply ran through each room, shooting at everything that moved and leaving a trail of destruction (and piles of rotting bones!) behind them. This seemed to work quite well at first until they encountered a rather interesting obstacle inside this dungeon: traps.

While killing a group of undead, Claire suddenly stepped too close to a 'sensor' that had been placed upon a nearby wall; it was a round, circular, gray object that would set off a trap after detecting the slightest movement. As soon as she approached it, a circle of fireballs suddenly exploded out of the walls and struck Claire and Kira, burning their arms quite badly; the two jumped backwards and Aaron quickly cast a heal spell to recover their wounds.

"What was that!?" Claire asked.

"Undead Lair traps; circular target-shaped sensors that explode when we get too close to them," Kira replied.

"Then we had better be more cautious from now on. I don't want to get hit by one of those things again!"

They proceeded down the next hallway, a bit more cautiously this time: in the next room, Claire spotted one of these traps before it set off, and she quickly shot it with an arrow; to her surprise, the trap was actually destroyed by her arrow and could no longer activate.

 _Well, that seems to work,_ Claire thought.

They continued onwards through the Undead Lair, and eventually Claire began to understand the layout of this dungeon. There were two types of rooms: circular and square ones, each linked to each other by a maze of interconnecting hallways. Every room was home to a different type of undead enemy: the weakest ones were the skeletons, and the strongest were the ghost archers — though none of these creatures really stood much of a chance against them anyways. In between were a mix of mummies (the spawn of Liches), undead dwarves and their lesser God, as well as some critters such as undead hobbits, bats, and slimes. With the exception of some health potions collected from the slimes, most of the monsters inside the Undead Lair dropped terrible loot.

Unlike their journey through the Snake Pit, which had been frustrating due to the powerful enemies that they had to fight, the Undead Lair was only difficult in the sense that it was extremely tedious. The paths frequently branched off into dozens of monster-infested hallways and trap-filled rooms; and many times they led into dead ends so the group had to backtrack often in order to find the right path through the dungeon.

Of all the monsters that they had to fight, the only troubling one was the Undead Dwarf God; the stench that it emitted, nauseating enough to muddle up one's senses, caused the party to accidentally set off a few traps by sometimes walking carelessly into them. Combined with the fact that they usually fought these creatures in narrow hallways, it made caution to be of the utmost importance during battle — and this severely slowed down their progress through the dungeon.

After a few hours of slow and tiresome fighting, the party finally reached the end of the Undead lair: it was a large, circular room filled with a horde of undead ghost-type monsters. The exit portal was guarded by a massive blue ghost God with glowing red eyes; Septavius, the king of this dungeon.

Another Ghost God? This shouldn't be too difficult, Claire thought. Septavius' ghost-servants attacked immediately upon seeing the group enter the room; the undead were stopped dead in their tracks, however, by Kira's Magic Nova spell, which also took out a large number of them. Then a few arrows from Claire and Eilin's bows finished off the rest; now, all that was left was Septavius himself to deal with.

The ghost was much like a poltergeist. It was surrounded by a ring of floating weapons, amongst them a sword, a flail, a dagger, an axe, and a staff. At its command each weapon would launch itself towards the party, attempting to strike at them before recoiling back to the ghost. For the most part, as long as they stayed a good distance away from Septavius, the group was able to dodge most of the creature's attacks; then all it took was a barrage of arrows and magic (from Kira's staff) to finish the creature off.

The circling strategy, however, did not work in this battle; at all times the ghost's weapons faced the party, so when Claire attempted to confuse the monster by darting back and forth around it, she was still caught unawares by Septavius' attacks. Fortunately the weapons did not hurt too much; and a healing spell from Aaron brought Claire back to full strength.

Kira's magic inflicted the final blow upon the monster; with a shrieking cry, Septavius the Ghost God disintegrated into ashes, leaving behind a few useful items: a red vitality pot, a blue wisdom pot, a vitality ring, and a Tome of Divine Favour.

"Stat pots!" Claire yelled as she ran towards the loot. Aaron picked up the Tome and drank the Wisdom Pot; Claire took the vitality.

"Well, at least our journey through this dungeon wasn't all for nothing," Claire said after the battle. "We managed to find two stat pots and a new healing tome for Aaron."

 _Kinda feels guilty, saying that,_ Claire thought. _Only Aaron and I received the stat pots. Kira and Eilin didn't really get anything at all out of this journey.._

"Let's get out of here


	10. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL X

**RotMG Novel: Chapter X**

It was around midnight when the party arrived out of the Undead Lair; they made camp around the ruins of the Ghost King and slept fitfully through the night without any ghostly interruptions.

The party awoke in the morning and continued upon their journey northwards; at around noon, they arrived into the Blue Wood. Claire noticed that this forest looked quite different (from what she had remembered of it) during the day; the trees still bore teal-coloured leaves, but now she saw a peculiar design within their natural form, and it was that their trunks were coated in a crystal-like substance resembling ice. Contrary to what she had thought earlier, it was not the colour of the leaves that illuminated the forest and made the place brighter during the night; rather, it was that the crystal-trunks reflected a greater amount of light from the Sun (or the moon) due to their glistening ice-covered form.

Hardly any plants grew inside the woods, save for some flowers — such as daffodils and daisies — also, in contrast to the trees, the grass was still green in colour. It was very quiet as the party entered the forest; strangely, there were no insects inside the blue wood, nor any sound of birds — and the blue light cast over the forest (from the sunlight through the veil of teal-coloured trees) gave the place a haunting, yet tranquil atmosphere. Indeed, it was silent — and their path surprisingly narrow, for many of the trees grew in thick clusters.

 _I have to admit, the Blue Wood is probably the most peculiar, yet fascinating place I've ever seen inside this Realm,_ Claire thought. _It just feels so…different from any other forest I've ever been to before._

"How long will it take for us to cross these woods?" Claire asked.

"If we stick to this path, then only about a day or so; the Blue Wood isn't too expansive in terms of north-south distance," Kira replied. "Of course, let's hope that we don't encounter any Gods along the way, or we'll be severely slowed down."

Their journey remained quite uneventful throughout the rest of the afternoon; the Blue Wood seemed surprisingly empty of monsters that day. Along the way, Claire noticed (and began to recall) a few notable landmarks that she had remembered seeing the last time she passed through this forest. The path that they took was a dirt trail that led around the base of some tall mountains (to the east), and then curved northwards in the direction of the Snow Plains. During this bend, the road passed over a wide flowing river via a stone bridge; under the glowing blue light of the trees, the water appeared opaque (for it camouflaged with its surroundings) and looked almost like solid ice. Its dirt shores were covered with large, boulder-like rocks; nearby them grew some pink flower patches as well as a few small shrubs and bushes. It was at this river that the dense clusters of trees growing inside the Blue Wood became more open and scattered; and this allowed the sun's rays to pierce through the crowded leaves covering the roof of the forest. The resplendent sight of golden-orange light felt relieving to the party after spending an entire day under the haunting glow of blue; and they felt refreshed.

 _If I remember correctly, it was also at this spot that Aaron left us, back on our last journey through these woods,_ Claire thought. _I hope nothing bad happens to us this time._

The path that they were following eventually led up a hill, and they arrived into a small clearing inside the forest; Claire remembered this place as where she had first encountered a God of the Realm (when she journeyed with the larger group). From here, the road split up: one path departed eastwards, curving back around the base of the mountains to arrive out of the Blue Wood; it then returned upon the Eoryun Highlands. The other led down a hill and into a small valley; there, it began following the river (that the party had crossed earlier) northwards, leading to a small lake located at the exact center of the forest.

It was here that they finally encountered some monsters: in the valley up ahead, there was a group of Night Elves and some lizard Gods prowling around. The battle would not be very difficult; the party charged down the hill and ambushed the enemy from behind. A flurry of arrows from Claire and Eilin's three-shot bows instantly took out most of the elves; the lizard Gods were the first to notice the group and one of them stepped forward, unleashing a barrage of green energy towards its enemies in retaliation.

Quickly the party ducked behind some trees to protect themselves from its attack; much to their dismay, they noticed the impending approach of a White Demon and an Ent God further up ahead. Kira raised her staff and blasted the rest of the elves into dust with her magic; then the party quickly retreated back up the hill in preparation for their upcoming battle.

The Lizard Gods were not all dead yet, and an Ogre God joined them; they followed the party into the clearing at the top of the hill and prepared to launch a counterattack against them. The monsters did not get very far, though; for they were stopped dead in their tracks by Claire's Demonhunter Trap, and ended up being slowed. The White Demon arrived seconds later, and the party welcomed the creature with a barrage of spells and arrows; a Magic Nova spell from Kira finished it off (before the Demon could even attack!) along with the rest of the Lesser Gods. Then came the Ent God, and the massive tree launched a wave of five magical beams of energy towards them; Claire was struck twice, but she was not hurt too much. In response, the group retaliated with another all-out attack, and the Ent Tree was incinerated by a beam of magic from Aaron's wand.

 _That wasn't too difficult,_ Claire thought. _Let's hope we can keep our skills up._

After the battle, they departed from the clearing down towards the valley; there, the group began following the dirt path again as it led westwards towards the lake. The road became very steep and elevated as they entered this region; about an hour later, after climbing up and down several hills, the party finally arrived back at the river, and by this time it was already dusk. The veil of leaves had departed from the roof of the forest; the skies were a dark orange in colour, and the Sun was setting beyond the western horizon.

 _This is about as far as we've gotten the last time we passed through these woods,_ Claire thought.

They followed along the rocky shores of the river until finally, at around evening time, the group reached the lake: it was located within a large clearing of the forest, surrounded by shallow cliffs and bordering the edge of a flower-filled grove. Here, the densely-clustered trees dispersed and the sky opened up above the party's heads; it was currently evening time and already a few stars had appeared through the black cloak of night.

"Let's make camp here," Claire said. "We've journeyed quite a distance today, and I'm tired; let's get some rest."

The group sat down upon the sandy shores of the lake and, with Kira's help, started up a fire; then they took out a few bowls with which they prepared a fish soup and some potato stew with. It was a fairly satisfying meal, and Claire was hungry enough (afterwards) that she also ate a ham sandwich as well. When their dinner was over, the sky was still not entirely dark yet; so they decided to go out exploring around the lake a bit.

Near the grove, Claire suddenly found some very strange-looking plants growing beneath a cluster of trees, and she ran towards them; only Kira followed after her, while Aaron and Eilin remained behind on the beach.

She entered the tree-grove and saw that these plants grew at the base of some blue trees; mostly amongst their huge, tangled crystal-white roots. They were the most interesting flowers she had ever seen before in her entire life: these plants bore black, crescent-shaped petals that were streaked with red, and had purple stems; they smelled strangely of vanilla, combined with a mix of sandalwood. Claire plucked one up from its stem and observed the flower closely.

"What are these things?" She asked.

"Yague flowers; they only grow inside the Blue Wood, and are a very rare find," Kira replied.

"It's beautiful." Claire touched its curly, C-shaped petals and sniffed the black-and-red flower (she was fairly sure that this plant would do no harm to her if she smelled it). "I've never seen another plant quite like it."

"Well, you can pick some and keep them, if you want."

"Oh, really!?" Claire responded, sounding a bit surprised. "Thanks. I think I'll make a bouquet with these flowers, if I get a chance to do so later on."

 _And if Yague flowers are so rare, then maybe I can even become a competent florist, if I acquire enough of them,_ Claire thought. _That's a silly notion, though. Who sells flowers in THIS Realm, anyways?_

She picked around thirty of the flowers and placed them inside her bag.

* * *

Aaron sat quietly by the beach, listening to the shifting waves as they crawled back and forth from the lake. Although Eilin sat beside him, neither spoke a word to each other; the silence felt extremely awkward.

 _Why did I stay with Eilin!?_ Aaron thought to himself. _Maybe I'm just tired; even then, it would've probably been more interesting if I had went with Claire…_

He threw Eilin a quick look, and then turned his head away shyly as he saw the other boy glance back at him. Aaron stood up and sighed; then he walked away from the lake and climbed a nearby hill to stand upon some neighbouring cliffs; they were located about ten feet above the beach. From this height, he could look clearly at the lake, and he saw reflected in its lustrous waters the twinkling stars above the night sky, as well as the Realm's large and full blue moon.

Aaron looked at Eilin again, and saw that he was still sitting on the ground, not doing anything in particular at the moment. _I get up and walk all the way over here, and he doesn't even seem to notice me,_ Aaron thought with a frown. _I wonder what he's thinking about right now?_

"Eilin!" Aaron called. "Can you come up here?"

The other boy stood up and he looked at Aaron questioningly; nevertheless, he walked towards him, ascending up the hill to stand beside Aaron upon the cliffs.

"What did you call me here for?" Eilin asked in his usual, somewhat conceited tone of voice.

"Ummmm…look down at the lake," Aaron replied. "The water here's really clear. You can see the moon, and even all the stars, reflected upon it."

 _Damn! That sounded really stupid,_ Aaron thought. _Then again…what was I thinking when I called him up here, anyways?_

Aaron glanced up at Eilin and observed the other boy's pale face; for a brief second, as he turned to look at the lake, Aaron saw a radiant glimmer within Eilin's dark eyes, a reflection of the moonlight from the sparkling waters below; and he thought it to be alluringly pretty (embarrassingly enough). Then it was gone, and the light disappeared into the black pools of Eilin's cold and lonely eyes.

He did not stop staring at his friend there, however.

Eilin turned towards Aaron; his eyes were narrowed and he looked somewhat frustrated (understandably enough). Aaron continued looking at the other boy's face, noticing all of its slight details; his high cheekbones and lengthy eyelashes, and the long, floppy black hair that fell in thin silk-like strands above his eyes. Aaron was unaware of his hands subtly reaching up towards Eilin's face, as well as the strange, overly-romanticized urge he suddenly felt to touch and stroke the other boy's cheeks.

 _Wait, WHAT?_

"What are you doing?" Eilin suddenly asked, causing Aaron to nearly jump out from his daze; and he nearly fell backwards.

"Oh, nothing," Aaron replied. "Ummm…just something on your face there. It's gone now."

"Uh-huh."

"Ummm…don't you find the lake pretty?" Aaron asked.

"I guess so. But it's still just a normal lake," and Eilin turned to head back down the hill.

 _Well…THAT was stupid,_ Aaron thought to himself. _What did I do that for? Now Eilin probably thinks that I'm creepy…or something._

 _Well, am I?_

 _What made me just try to…touch him?_

Aaron was snapped out of his thoughts by a sudden yell in the distance. Claire and Kira came running towards them, a very worried look upon their faces.

"There's trouble up ahead!" Kira exclaimed. "Come look!"

Aaron and Eilin rushed over to the spot where Claire had been picking the flowers; nearby, there lay the path that the group had been following earlier, the dirt trail that led northwards through the forest and to the Snow Plains. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"What's wrong?" Aaron asked.

Kira stepped forward, onto the road, and cast a beam of light outwards from her staff, illuminating the path up ahead.

What Aaron saw made his skin crawl: hundreds of spiders covered the path up ahead, each about five inches long and were green in colour; the largest spiders were black (or red) and were nearly the size of a boot; the smallest were tiny and brown. Up ahead, the light from Kira's staff illuminated the rotting body of a slain Undead Dwarf; the entrance into another dungeon, the Spider's Den, opened up from him.

"I've never seen this happen before!" Kira yelled. "Someone must have lured all of the spiders out from their den to guard this road!"

"Why don't we just walk around it?" Claire suggested. "The spiders are only covering up a certain part of this trail. It should still be fairly open up ahead."

Kira nodded. "That's what I was thinking, too. But seeing all these spiders makes me shiver; and who would do such a thing!?"

They hurried into the tree-clustered sections of the wood, and ran about a quarter of a mile northwards until they had passed the part of the road that was covered with the spiders. Then they returned back to the dirt path, and resumed upon their journey.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight, after seeing that," Aaron commented once the spiders were out of sight.

"Me neither," Claire replied. "We're not much further away from the exit of these woods, now. Let's just quickly get out of here; we'll make camp when the night ends."

They hurried onwards through the rest of the Blue Wood.

* * *

Late in the night, the party arrived out of the forest and onto the snow plains: the sun had yet to come up, and the frosty (predawn) air was extremely cold. They had now entered the northern region of the Realm; this was the only place in the world that received any precipitation at all (which was, of course, snow). As the party exited out of the wood, they saw a vast white landscape laid out before them; for many miles the plains stretched, a flat plateau-like region surrounded by mountains and covered with a boundless expanse of ice and snow. A few blue trees grew out upon this plain; the rest were mostly coniferous, such as pines and spruce.

The temperature was bitterly cold at this time of the night; a chill northerly wind blew through the air, carrying upon it a few flurries of snow. The party quickly dressed themselves in several extra layers of clothes (which they had bought from the Fedrinas Kingdom); then they returned back near the woods (since the ground there wasn't covered with snow) to start a fire and break camp.

The group awoke at around noon the next day; Claire was rather surprised at how long they had slept (even if the party did go to sleep rather late last night). The sun was now shining high up in the sky, and the place no longer felt as cold as it had been early that morning (the wind seemed to have calmed, too). Out upon the plains, many travelers were running about; the place appeared to be extremely busy (even more so than the Highlands).

"Where should we go now?" Aaron asked after they were done eating breakfast. "Do any of you know where the Cube God might be?"

"We still have a ways to go," Kira replied. "I heard that the battle is taking place near the great mountains; located at the far northern edge of these plains. It'll take another day or two for us to get there."

 _Damn! By the time we arrive, the battle will probably be already over,_ Claire thought. _No, I mustn't think like that, or we'd have come all the way out here for nothing._

"We should hurry, then," Claire suggested. "Let's try to reach the Cube God as quickly as possible."

The party departed north of the plains; it was not long before they caught up with a few groups of travelers who were also heading north to battle the Cube God. Claire noticed a familiar face within their party: it was Jonathan, the Rogue; he had accompanied Claire on her first quest in this Realm (to battle the Deathmage), and she had also seen him briefly at Amerdoth, during their battle against the Red Demon and the Gods.

"Hi, Claire!" Jonathan exclaimed when he was greeted by the huntress. "It's been quite some time since we last met. I assume you've become much stronger in the past few weeks, no?"

Claire nodded. "It's nice to see you too. We've been traveling all over this Realm since then, haven't we?"

"Right. Were you at the battle in Amerdoth, when we fought against the Red Demon and the Skull Shrine?"

"Yes! I remember seeing you there, too, but I never got a chance to speak to you. Also, I went south, and fought against the Pentaract as well; I've acquired tons of good loot from all these tough battles."

"Looks like you're doing much better than me," Jonathan commented with a laugh.

"Oh, I'm sure you're quite strong, too. By the way, have you any news of the current battle with the Cube God?"

"They're not doing very well," Jonathan replied, sighing. "We left the creature alive for too long, and in a few weeks, it's already spawned a massive army of over two hundred cubes."

"That sounds like trouble. I hope we can make it out of that battle alive!"

The Rogue chuckled. "Don't worry; almost every traveler in this Realm has gathered here to participate in the battle against the Cube God. I'm sure that we'll do fine!"

All of a sudden, there came a yell from a few warriors up ahead: "Gods, incoming!"

 _Damn! Gods again?_ Claire thought. _I suppose it was inevitable, but still…_

The group found themselves being attacked by a Slime God and a Medusa. Immediately all the archers began firing their arrows, wizards cast their spells, and the melee attackers charged ahead to take their enemies head-on. The Slime God was promptly slain; but before the party could defeat the Medusa, two more Gods arrived: a Djinn and an Ent. The group (which consisted of about fifteen or so members) quickly split up in an attempt to divide the Gods' attention, and Claire joined Aaron and Jonathan, who were heading northwards to join in a battle against a cluster of powerful monsters.

There were some Undead Dwarves (again!) as well as their lesser God; also a Flying Brain, a White Demon, and a Ghost God. It took a while to kill all of these Gods; and Aaron found himself healing constantly in order to keep everyone alive. After slaying the Ghost God, Claire was the first to notice that the creature dropped a green speed pot; she immediately grabbed it, and upon drinking the pot, felt a slight increase in her agility.

Trouble came when the two parties regrouped, but were quickly caught at the center of a pincer attack between two Medusas and a Sprite God. Immediately everyone clustered together; this allowed healing to be a bit easier amongst the priests, but it also left the party more vulnerable to the Medusa's bomb attack, which blasted a wide radius instead of a specific target.

Much to his dismay, Aaron found himself struck by the Sprite God's 'scythe', which made him unable to cast any spells for a few minutes (he could not utter a single sound from his throat!) Then, Claire noticed that one of the glowing star-shaped objects surrounding the Sprite God suddenly transformed into a portal when it was struck; and immediately, people began piling in towards the gateway.

"Is this another dungeon?" Aaron asked.

"Yes," Jonathan replied. "It's called Sprite World; one of the rarer dungeons, I believe."

"Then I want to go in!" Aaron said; the Sprite God was slain by a Paladin's Archon sword, leaving the portal completely open for anyone to enter.

"I don't think I'll be going into this one," Claire replied. "I want to hurry to the battle with the Cube God."

"I'll be fine; don't worry," Aaron said. "Plus, there are many other travelers going into this dungeon with me, so I won't be left alone."

Claire sighed. "Well, it's your choice, if you want to enter," she said. "Just promise me that you'll be okay, alright?"

"I promise." He waved goodbye to Claire, and then jumped into the portal, whisking him out of this Realm.

Claire regrouped with Kira and Eilin after killing all of the Gods; then they hurried ahead to join with the rest of the party. The group did not have to fight any more Gods for the rest of the afternoon; at around evening time, they arrived near the town of Colberth, a small outpost village located at the eastern part of the Lefran Snow plains (in close proximity with the surrounding mountains).

Much to their surprise, they found another group of travelers up ahead; these had just left the village and were departing westwards.

"Where are you guys going?" Jonathan asked when the two groups crossed each others' paths. "Isn't the Cube God that way?" And he pointed to the north.

"No, we're just villagers; we aren't interested in going after the Cube God," one of them responded. "We're just heading west towards the nearby hill to take out the Cyclops God that dwells there."

"What's a Cyclops God still doing in this Realm!?" A Paladin demanded. "Shouldn't all of Oryx's greater minions be slain by now?"

The villagers shook their heads. "No: there's still this one left. We were too afraid to fight the Cyclops God before, since his castle was surrounded by Gods; but now that they've been taken out by all the travelers passing through here, we've decided that we're ready to fight the Cyclops."

There were a few groans amongst the group; then about five people parted to join with the villagers, to help hasten the slaying of the Cyclops God. The others decided that, since it was getting a bit dark out upon these plains (and the place would soon become very cold), they would go to the village and rest the night at an inn there.

"How powerful is the Cyclops God?" Claire asked.

"It's not even as powerful as the Ghost King. The battle won't last more than a minute," Kira replied.

"Well, in that case, I think I'll go with them; the more experience I get in battle, the better! I'll see you guys in the town later!"

Claire followed the villagers as they journeyed about a mile westwards; then they reached a hill, upon which an old, crumbling castle had been built (at the summit). It was surrounded by a large moat; there lay fallen debris everywhere around the the massive structure.

"Let's charge the entrance and take out this Cyclops quickly," a Knight suggested. "He won't pose much of a challenge against our group."

The battle was laughable; without the presence of any Gods, there stood virtually nothing in the way of the party's assault. A wooden bridge had been built over the moat; and a few Cyclops soldiers stood there, awaiting the impending attack. They lasted about as much as five seconds before being chopped to pieces by the Knights' swords; inside the castle, there were about thirty Cyclops guarding their God, who was a large, yellow-skinned creature that had a single bulging eye upon its bald forehead. The Cyclops and its minions charged the group, but were immediately driven back by a barrage of arrows as well as some spells from the wizards. Then the Paladins made quick work of the Cyclops God, who fell after being stabbed four times through the chest. Only one person had gotten injured throughout the whole fight; a villager who was accidentally struck by the Cyclops' club. Nevertheless, a priest's spell quickly healed his wound.

 _Well, that was anticlimactic,_ Claire thought. _I suppose I didn't really need to come along, after all._

She ignored the castle's treasure chest and prepared to make her way back towards the town.


	11. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL XI

**RotMG Novel: Chapter XI**

The town of Colberth was a small outpost village located at the center of the Lefran Snow Plains; it was treated by many travelers as a "rest stop" area on their journeys to the northern regions of the Realm. Only about a hundred or so people lived in this town; Colberth was obviously not as industrialized as Dale's Port or the Fedrinas Kingdom. Its cottage-like houses were built of wood and the village had an inn, a tavern, and an equipments shop; the town also did not have an outdoor marketplace (since its streets were covered entirely in snow), rather only a few grocery stores.

The party slept at the inn that night; then, in the morning, they departed to the local tavern (where most of the other travelers were gathering) and had a nice, warm breakfast consisting of pancakes (with syrup), sausages, and some scrambled eggs. The group that Claire, Kira, and Eilin had been traveling with (yesterday) were meeting there to discuss some recent affairs involving the upcoming battle.

"Apparently, the Cube God has wandered into God territory, delaying the battle once again," a Priest said during their meeting.

"We can probably reach the site of battle by noon today. How long will it take for us to breach through all those Gods?" Asked Jonathan.

"It might take over a day to do so; just enough time for the Cube God to spawn even more minions."

Their group sighed. "And just when we thought we had turned the tides," a Paladin said (he was one who had recently returned from the battle with the Cube God).

"We might as well get going," the priest suggested. "Let's hurry over to the battle and try to help them."

Claire quickly finished eating her breakfast; and then she drank a glass of milk, before regrouping with Kira and Eilin (who were packing up their equipment). They had restocked on all the provisions that they needed — mainly food — at this town (after selling much loot), and were waiting for Claire at the inn.

"Looks like we've got more Gods to deal with before we can take on the Cube God," Claire said to her friends. "This battle should still last a while yet."

"And I wonder about Aaron…" Kira replied. "He went to the Sprite World yesterday, right? When do you think he'll come back?"

"A dungeon shouldn't take more than a few hours — half a day, at most — to complete. I just hope that he's alright, though."

"Well, he's not in town right now — that I'm sure of. If Aaron's with another group of travelers, they'll most likely meet up with us on our journey today."

The party finished packing up all their equipment and then departed out of town: it was a bright and sunny day; the temperature was warm (at least for this region) and a cloudless blue sky lay above their heads. To the north, the group could see the Great Mountains — with their jagged peaks, shrouded in clouds, and their black, rocky crests — beyond a vast expanse of ice and snow, which lay upon a rolling landscape covered entirely under a blanket of white. Here all the teal-leaved trees (from the earlier Blue Wood) had disappeared and were now replaced with pines and spruce; their dark evergreen leaves coated in a layer of snow. Near the town was a frozen lake, and from it a river flowed out to the west: towards the ocean, passing through a cold and barren landscape.

From Colberth, the party continued northwards, and eventually their journey took them to the base of a hill. From here, they began their ascent up the Great Northern Mountains; at its summit would lie the site of the battle with the Cube God. The climb was a steep path consisting of rugged and very snowy terrain; tall, rocky cliffs bordered them on both sides of the hill, and — unlike the rest of the plains — the area was dotted with many trees, which formed small evergreen forests (where they grew in dense clusters).

As the party reached about halfway up the mountain, they saw the current path that they were following begin to narrow until it extended into part of a ledge; it was located upon a sloped incline which traveled around the side of the hills until it reached the mountain boundaries. From here, they began climbing up the surrounding cliffs upon a slightly more elevated road; this path would take them towards the summit of the mountains, passing through a few hills and forests along the way. Eventually it reached a mountain ridge, and the ledge became a narrow entrance into a snow-covered canyon surrounded by cliffs; a river flowed beside them, which came from a nearby half-frozen waterfall. This ridge was a plateau-like region located at the center of the mountains (a highlands of sorts); unlike the rest of the ascent, the terrain here was flat and open enough — resembling the earlier snow plains — for monsters to gather in abundance.

It was not long before the party (consisting of about twenty or so travelers) met up with some more Gods as they approached out of the canyon. A Beholder, a Flying Brain, and a White Demon greeted the group as they journeyed up the mountains. The Flying Brain attacked first, sending forth several blasts of purplish, electrified energy down towards the party; a wave of arrows and magic bombarded the monster in return. Then all the melee attackers charged forth, and they made quick work of the Flying Brain with their swords; a Djinn and a Ghost appeared to replace the fallen God. The warriors all retreated, and another barrage of arrows were sent back at the monsters to ward them off. It was the White Demon that attacked next, and the red star that he threw forth wounded a wizard; in response, a Necromancer stepped forward and blasted the God with a stream of blood-coloured energy from his skull. The life force from the Demon was then transferred back to the wizard (in the form of white-coloured spheres of energy), healing his wound.

 _That person looks familiar…_ Claire thought when she saw the Necromancer. _Is that…Merrick!?_

She rushed forward to the front of the group and approached Merrick when he had finished casting his spell. "Hey, are you the Necromancer from Ranorn Forest?" Claire asked.

"Yes, I am," Merrick responded, "And you are?"

"I'm Claire; you helped guide us through Ranorn Forest about a month ago when we fought against the Ent Ancient! Don't you remember?"

Merrick nodded. "Yes, I do now. Oh, you're here to battle the Cube God, too?"

"Of course. What are you doing here, though? I thought you preferred to live in the forest?"

"Not when we're so close to encountering Oryx! Even I sometimes leave my home to help finish off the Mad God's last few minions," Merrick replied.

They had just slain the Djinn; but now the party was being attacked by a Slime God and another Flying Brain. From the west, a Medusa and a second White Demon was approaching them.

Claire quickly joined a group of archers as they began shooting down the Medusa before it got too close. Unfortunately, the party was interrupted by the Slime God, who reached them first and attacked the party with a fiery blast of energy. Claire quickly covered her nose from the monster's nauseating stench, and then retreated back towards the center of the group. A few wizards nearby (including Kira) stepped forward to cast their spells, and the Gods were driven back by a blast of magic from a Magic Nova and some Destruction Spheres.

The Medusa then charged, and it made its appearance known with a magical bomb, dispersing almost the entire group as everyone tried to scramble out of range of the creature's attack. Only a few were struck; then the group reassembled and caught the Medusa in the middle of a pincer attack. Arrows flew and swords slashed; the God retaliated with several more bombs, as well as powerful blasts of magic from its green arrows — which kept many of the priests busy with their healing. Finally the Medusa was slain by a Paladin, and as its body disintegrated to the ground, another cave-like portal appeared over its body: no doubt a dungeon.

"Another one!?" Claire yelled when she noticed this portal. "Where does the dungeon lead this time?"

To her surprise, she saw many people in the group rushing towards the portal, as if its importance completely preceded that of their current journey to defeat the Cube God. Soon, over half of their party had gone.

"The Abyss of Demons…" Kira said. "The dungeon that's home to the most powerful monsters in this Realm."

"That doesn't sound very inviting," Claire replied. "Why's everyone heading into it?"

Kira chuckled a bit. "No one likes missing out on stat pots…" She said. "Especially not the rare ones."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going, too. Sometimes, even Gods can get boring."

"Wait!" Claire glanced around her, noticing that only a few members of the group were now left; about five remained, and there were still many Gods up ahead.

"Are you coming, too, Eilin?" Claire asked the archer.

"I guess so. We'll have a higher chance of surviving in the Abyss than out here, right now."

Claire sighed. _He has a point. No one wants to take on Gods with only five other people…_

And she dived right in.

* * *

Claire opened her eyes to find herself in a dark red room; she stood upon a strange, carpeted floor tiled with scarlet-coloured concrete, and the ceiling was a vermilion pigment. Bright yellow lanterns — which were hung throughout the room upon the crimson walls of the abyss — provided the only source of light in the entire dungeon. Also, she took note of the fact that the hallway up ahead was half-covered in a river of lava.

"Looks like a moderately comfortable hell to me," Claire commented. "It certainly feels as hot as one."

"Let's proceed cautiously," Kira replied. "Every room of this abyss is guarded by powerful Demons; if we rush too quickly ahead, we'll just get ourselves killed."

They entered the lava-covered hallway, and were immediately attacked by an Imp-like creature with black ears, as well as a red-caped Demon Mage. Immediately there were shouts from the front of the group as swords slashed, arrows flew, and spells sang through the air; and the party was driven back by just these two Demons and their powerful fire-magic.

Claire backed away as the monsters slowly advanced ahead, and already one warrior had fallen from accidentally stepping into the lava. Inside the Abyss, movement was a problem; for the Demons could walk in fire, but (obviously) the party had to use bridges (which were composed of smoldering red stones) in order to cross the lava.

Everyone began to back away from the hallway, while more Demons rushed at them from up ahead; healing spells were thrown back and forth constantly between all the priests. Finally, one of the Demons fell after being struck by nearly thirty arrows; and the other ones temporarily retreated.

"We need to be more organized," a Paladin said. "Let's get into a single-file group; the knights and warriors stay up ahead, archers and rogues should go behind them, and wizards remain at the back. One priest should accompany every five people."

Claire stepped in line beside Eilin; then the battle resumed. All the Demons attacked again, but this time they were quickly halted by a wave of arrows from the archers (which were all unleashed at the same time). Then the Knights charged onto the lava bridge and took the Demons head-on, while the Priests healed them every few seconds. They returned after a minute or so, with good news: all the Demons had been slain.

 _This strategy seems to work well enough,_ Claire thought. _The archers and wizards start with their long-ranged shots to stop all the Demons from attacking; then the knights follow up with a charge, aided by some priests, to take them all out._

They stepped into the next room, past the hallway, which was covered in even more lava, and then began cautiously navigating themselves across the bridges. Not one minute had passed before more Demons arrived: this time, a tall, red armored Warrior who brandished a great sword and also wore a black belt. In a second, ten arrows flew towards him; but it did not stop the Demon from continuing its charge, and more appeared behind it.

"Brute Warriors," Kira whispered. "They don't really understand the meaning of caution, and will fight to the death against even vastly more powerful opponents — quite dangerous in large groups."

All the knights charged against the Brutes, and a fierce battle began. The Demon Warriors had the advantage of speed, which came from their (possibly) enchanted swords; the monsters' blades seemed to be able to attack in three different places at once, and the melee attackers had a difficult time dealing with them in an upfront sword duel. With aid from the priests (who were healing), as well as the added offensive that came from the archers and the wizards, the Brutes were eventually taken down; though not before the death of another warrior, whose body had been thrown into the lava by the Demons.

 _Damn. I hope our group can survive to the end of this dungeon…_ Claire thought.

They continued to proceed cautiously through the abyss, stopping to fight some Demons in every room — and indeed, the party's numbers were slowly being whittled down, though not too significantly; only the weaker amongst the group died, and after a while, about eleven remained (Claire, Kira, and Eilin — of course — being part of this number). The monsters in the Abyss were not as powerful (in terms of raw strength) as Gods, but their aggressiveness and tendency to attack in large groups made them just as worthy an opponent. In particular the Brutes were annoying, for they charged and attacked almost mercilessly as soon as they saw the party — making many of the priests work overtime with their healing. The other Demons weren't as strong — though the Demon Mage and the Warrior still hit fairly hard with their spells of fire; the Imps were very fast, despite being the weakest of the Demons.

The Abyss of Demons was quite similarly in its layout as the Undead Lair; only that it was slightly smaller and had less branching paths which led to dead ends. However, they still encountered a lot of intersections along the way, and the party ran into a total of about five dead ends; this made their journey through the dungeon even more tiring due to the additional number of Demons that they had to fight. It was at these intersections that the party encountered the most danger; for they could be attacked from two or three different directions at once. And indeed, many times, as they tried to head down a hallway, the group would be attacked by some Demons from another hallway; and ambushes were particularly bad if it happened to involve the suicidally-charging Brutes. For this reason, Claire wisely tried to stay at the center of the group at all times, so that she wouldn't be exposed to attack from either end.

About halfway through the Abyss, when Claire shot down a Brute, she noticed the Demon drop an orange dexterity potion, and she quickly grabbed it and drank the pot before anyone else noticed. _So that's what Kira meant when she said that no one likes to miss out on stat pots…_ Claire thought. _The Demons of this abyss must be the only creatures that drop the rare dexterity pot, aside from Master Gods, of course._

As they progressed through the Abyss, she saw several more dexterity pots drop from the Brutes, but was unable to acquire any more of them; indeed, there was vigilant competition for the procurement of the rarer stat potions.

The party's worst battle inside the dungeon occurred when the group arrived at a four-way junction; one path led northwards, another southwest, and the final (directly) to the south. Since the latter two were covered in rivers of lava, the group decided to head north first; as soon as they entered this hallway, the party was attacked by an Imp, a Demon Mage, and several Demon Warriors.

As usual, all the knights charged forward to engage in melee battle with their enemies, and they were backed by a second wave of offense from the long-ranged archers and wizards. It went well until the party suddenly found themselves ambushed by another two Imps that came from behind (out of the southwestern passage). The group quickly split up to deal with the Imps, but found themselves facing a bigger problem when a wave of Brutes arrived out of the southern hallway as well; they had been caught in the middle of a pincer attack.

The knights (who had been charging the Demon Warriors at the front of the group) immediately turned around and went to deal with the Brutes, which left the long-ranged attackers exposed to the full brunt of the Demons' attack from the north; fortunately, Claire was at the center of the group, so she remained relatively safe from the enemies' attacks. Everyone charged southwards to take the Brutes out first (since they were the most powerful amongst the Demons), and after an arduous battle — which resulted in the death of a Rogue and a Priest — managed to successfully slay all of them.

Then they turned their attention towards the remaining enemies: the Demon Warriors and the Imps; with the Brutes dead, the tables had turned and the party was able to escape out of the pincer attack — with a blast of magic from her staff, Kira was able to finish the last Demon Warrior off.

There was only one priest left with the group when they finally reached the end of the Abyss; here, the floor was tiled in a peculiar red-and-black checkerboard scheme, and the path up ahead was separated by several rivers of lava (through which only stone bridges could be used to cross). Not five seconds after the group stepped out into this large circular room were they attacked by some White Demons, and everyone immediately returned to their usual battle formation. A barrage of arrows and magic were sent out at the White Demons to try and take them out; then all the knights, warriors, and paladins charged forward to engage in melee battle. They were quickly driven back, however, by a large, gold-skinned Demon with scaly brown wings and viciously sharp claws; it sent forth a large blast of fiery-streamed magic towards the party.

"Archdemon Malphas," Kira whispered to Claire as they backed away from their enemy. "The master of the abyss; ruler of this dungeon. He's not too powerful, but he attacks fast; and is usually accompanied by a group of White Demons, too."

The party began to fight defensively; with the knights and warriors standing in front to protect the others, and all the archers and wizards behind them to launch their long-ranged attacks at the monsters. The White Demons were quickly taken out; all that remained was now Malphas himself. The Archdemon flew all over the room and was thus extremely difficult to strike; and indeed, he attacked extremely quickly with his spells of flame, sending wave after wave of fireballs and lightning bolts at the party. When the group realized that ranged attacks were not enough to take out the Archdemon (due to his immense speed), a Paladin cast his 'Heal' spell — and Claire felt her strength being gradually rejuvenated by some invisible spell — and the group charged forward.

The Archdemon had crossed the first river of lava and was now attacking the party from behind it; everyone immediately charged over the bridge and surrounded the Demon to prevent it from escaping: they began blasting the creature with a barrage of arrows and magic. A wizard fell when he accidentally stepped too close to Malphas, and the Demon grabbed his body, ripping it to shreds with its massive claws. In retaliation, a warrior charged at the Archdemon and plunged his Mithril sword through its chest; Malphas shrieked in pain, before disintegrating into dust at the warrior's feet.

Everyone cheered, for they had overcome the abyss — though not without the loss of a few lives; some were interested in Malphas' loot, but most were now hurrying towards the exit of the dungeon.

"Well, looks like we did it," Claire said after the battle. "I feel sorry for those that died, though." _Especially that wizard. We were so close to defeating the Archdemon, and then he fell…_

"People come and go, just like that, in this Realm," Kira replied with a sigh.

Claire understood what Kira was saying; she was still thinking of her brother, who had died a few weeks ago in the battle against the Red Demon.

"I wish that it wouldn't be that way." _Oh, what I am saying!? I've already seen hundreds of people die in this Realm. Death is inevitable; is it really something that I could try to change?_

"I've gotten used to it," Kira said. "It's just the way that this Realm is; let's get out of here, now."

They made for the exit of the Abyss.

* * *

 _I don't understand something. If death is truly inevitable, then why do I persist to live? Why do I allow myself to become attached to friends, even though I know that they might be gone one day?_

 _But that's never really been changed. Death has always been this way, even outside of this Realm._

 _…_ _How should I know anything about the nature of existence outside of the 'Realm'?_

Claire opened her eyes to find herself standing in the middle of a pine forest; she stood upon a snow-covered hill, and the towering peaks of lofty mountains — shrouded within clouds — loomed in the far distance. The sky above her was a dark blue in colour, and stars were beginning to come out; Claire guessed that it must be evening time right now. A few flakes of snow drifted through the air; there was no wind, and the forest seemed unnaturally quiet.

 _And would any sane person really want to hasten the time of their inevitable deaths?_

All the veil of silence was suddenly broken by a massive explosion of — something — (perhaps a Medusa's bomb) in the distance; then there came shouts and cries, along with the sounds of a fierce battle. Swords clashed, and arrows and spells flew through the air; from up the hill, Kira and Eilin came running down towards Claire.

"Claire!" Kira yelled. "They're fighting the Cube God, not less than a mile away from here!"

"Cube God!? I thought we still had a ways to go before we reached him!"

Kira shook her head. "No, there was a false report. Come up here and look!"

Claire followed her friends out of the forest, and when they arrived upon the summit of the hill, she saw a massive battle taking place between over fifty travelers and an entire army of Gods; she was reminded of the war that they had fought against the Red Demon back at the Shadow-Lands. Only a few weeks had passed since then, and Claire saw again the gritty sight of a blood-stained battlefield; dead bodies lay in abundance upon the crimson red snow — mostly those of Gods, but of a few travelers too, who had been slain by the monsters' powerful magic.

And there were a lot of Gods; perhaps not as much as Amerdoth (in terms of its overall population), but here they gathered in far greater densities — and a cluster of them, almost forty in number, could be seen up ahead: they were guarding the Cube God.

Claire rushed towards the back of the group to join in the battle; against so many Gods, her contribution would be little, so she refrained from trying to attack — for now. As she hid amongst all the rushing crowds of people, Claire suddenly saw a familiar face: a boy with long brown hair and green eyes, and he wore purple robes — it was, of course, Aaron.

"Aaron!" Claire yelled, and she ran towards her friend; he immediately turned around, waved when he saw her.

"Claire! I've been looking all over for you!" Aaron exclaimed as she approached him. "I thought you'd have arrived here by now."

"I was in another dungeon — the Abyss of Demons," Claire replied. "I'm glad you're alright. How are you doing?"

"Well, I found a new weapon in the Sprite World!" Aaron held up a wand that was forged of a strange blue wood; it was extremely smooth and had sharp, rounded edges.

"Also, a ring of Paramount Defense, from killing one of the Gods; I don't need the Snake Eye's Ring anymore, since I've pretty much gotten over my fear of Medusas."

"That's great!" Claire responded. "How's the battle going with the Cube God?"

Before Aaron could reply, the group was suddenly driven back by another wave of Gods — specifically, three powerful Medusas — and three travelers fell as they tried to defend themselves against the monsters' merciless charge. Claire and Aaron were pushed towards the center of the group — where a more 'engaging' battle was taking place — while Kira and Eilin rushed forward to catch up with them.

"Hey, Aaron! Glad you're alright!" Kira yelled when she greeted the boy.

"Hello, Kira!" Aaron waved back at her; then when he saw Eilin, he suddenly rushed towards the boy and nearly jumped upon him, giving him a rather adoring hug. Eilin was taken aback by this, and seemed nearly dumbfounded; then he gave Aaron a light shove to push him off.

"What was the point of that?" Eilin asked.

Aaron looked away, and he seemed to become slightly embarrassed by what he just did.

"Oh, nothing. I'm glad to see that you're alright."

"Why…the hug, though?"

"Well…I don't know. Can't I just be happy to see you?"

 _You seem a bit…TOO happy,_ Claire thought, and a strange notion suddenly came to her head. _Aaron's ALWAYS happy when he sees Eilin; I mean, I understand that Eilin saved his life…twice, but really, doesn't he seem to be going a bit overboard?_

 _Huh. Does Aaron like Eilin or something?_ Claire put her hand over her mouth to muffle a slight chuckle. _Oh, that's kind of cute! Though…I wonder if Eilin's even interested in that kind of 'stuff?' She turned to look at the archer for a few seconds. I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but Eilin seems a bit introverted…cynical, almost. Well, it doesn't matter as long as we get along with each other._

She was suddenly interrupted out of her thoughts by an explosion that came from up ahead; three Magic Novas had been dropped upon the cluster of Gods, effectively dispersing them apart. An Assassin was running around throwing the Nightwing's orange poison upon the monsters; then some knights came forward and stunned several of the Gods with a blast of energy from their magical shields. This crippled the enemy enough for the group to launch a counter-offensive, and immediately everyone charged against the monsters.

To her surprise, Claire found herself standing at the front of the group: just where she had tried to avoid being; perhaps she was swayed by her sudden lust for battle. Heedless of the enemies' attacks — for healing spells were being cast every few seconds — Claire approached several of the Gods (nearly at point blank range!) and slew them with a barrage of arrows from her powerful Fey Bow. One of them (an Ent God) dropped another black defense potion, and Claire drank it immediately — causing her to feel another boost in her physical endurance.

"It'll take forever to defeat all of these Gods!" A warrior suddenly yelled. "Let's just charge through them, so we can reach the Cube God already!"

 _A charge!?_ Claire thought. _I thought it wasn't wise to attempt to run through an army of Gods!_

"It might work this time," Kira said, as if in reply to what Claire had been thinking. "The Cube God's not far away; so we might actually be able to make it through."

"It still sounds risky, though," Claire responded.

But it seemed her opinion did not reflect the majority, for the group decided to charge regardless; the Assassin's poison seemed to work when several of the Gods suddenly disintegrated to the ground, causing a massive gap to appear in the middle of the monsters' group. A paladin cast a spell from his Holy Warrior Seal, and — due to the 'constant' healing — everyone began to dash through the cluster of Gods. There was no more doubt that their charge would be successful.

They were wrong.

The number of the Gods had been underestimated; for about twenty more actually surrounded the Cube God, and thus they would have to fight them off even if they reached their destination. The group saw this early enough to retreat before they became surrounded; at the front, however, a few people still decided to charge, and they continued running through the cluster of Gods.

"Eilin! Are you crazy!?" Kira yelled as she chased after her friend, who was fast enough to outrun most of the Gods before they caught up with him. "You can't take on the Cube God all by yourself!"

As she ran, Kira looked back behind her; she had just passed through the 'gap' that had been formed between the monsters, and now it was closing up. Even if she turned around now, she would not be able to reach the group without having to pass through a minefield of Gods first.

She chased after Eilin as he ran back into the forest, which was where the Cube God was located (after one crossed through the snow plains). However, she was unable to continue any longer when a Medusa bomb suddenly flew above her head; and as it exploded, Kira was knocked out cold.

* * *

"Are you alright?"

Kira opened up her eyes, and she seemed to be in a daze; the world was gray and foggy around her, and she felt something trickling down her forehead. The colour of red implied that it must be blood; she quickly rubbed her eyes to clear them, and then saw Eilin sitting beside her. They were still in the snow-covered forest; but it was not — as she had thought — surrounded by Gods.

"Where are we?" Kira asked.

"Not far from the Cube God," Eilin answered. "When you fell unconscious, I grabbed your body and pulled you to an area where it was safe. Take one step out of this clearing, and you'll become target practice for all the blaster cubes."

Kira sighed. "And we're all alone here, aren't we?"

"Yes. I'm sorry…it's my fault that we're stuck here right now."

"Why did you keep running, even when the rest of the group stopped?"

Eilin stared down at his feet, and for a while did not say anything. Then finally, he responded: "I don't know."

"What!?" Kira cried.

"…I've always preferred to be alone than with others. I knew that I couldn't possibly defeat the Cube God by myself…but for some reason, I didn't feel like returning back to the group."

"You were acting on impulse," Kira said. "That was an extremely stupid thing to do."

"I know. Now, I'm (actually) somewhat glad that you followed me…but I'd rather you be with the group, where it's safer."

"And let you stay here, alone, all by yourself!?" Kira shook her head. "No, I followed you to protect you."

"Thanks, Kira."

 _That sounded kind of strange…I suppose what I meant, was, I followed Eilin so that we could protect EACH OTHER…_

"Don't do this again!" Kira yelled, trying to sound as optimistic as possible. "I'm your friend; so that means I care about you. You've always kept to yourself; you think that you can do everything alone." She shook her head. "No, I won't allow that. I will help you whenever I can, even if it puts my life in danger."

 _Because I wasn't there to help my brother when he died. I won't be so selfish anymore. Never again._

Eilin smiled shyly at Kira as he helped the wizard to her feet; then he gave Kira a healing potion so that she could recover her strength. Above them, small flakes of snow were drifting down from the dark and cloudy skies; the night air was cold, but also calm — for there was no wind. For a while, Kira and Eilin simply stood there, in melancholy despair: they were helpless by themselves, and could not do anything but wait for the group — or the Cube God — to arrive; whomever came first. Yet, in the comfort of the other's presence, they felt slightly better; for Kira and Eilin's companionship seemed to console each other, and it gave them some hope despite the bleakness of their situation.

It turned out to be blind hope, however.

Of the group and the Cube God: it was the latter that arrived first. All of a sudden there came a massive crashing sound from behind Kira, and she spun around just in time to see a giant blue box-shaped figure charging towards them; it was at least twenty feet tall, and the Cube God literally piled through everything that obstructed its path — even knocking over entire trees. Immediately Kira and Eilin dived out of the clearing, and hid behind a few trees; then the Cube God's minions arrived: an assortment of small blue cubes (which were about two feet tall), yellow cubes (about twice as large), and an orange cube (nearly half the size of the Cube God) — there were at least fifty of them.

"What do we do, now!?" Kira asked in a rather panicked tone of voice.

"I don't know. The Cube God's minions aren't too strong, but we can't take them all out by ourselves."

"So should we run?"

Before Eilin could reply, the tree that he had been hiding behind was suddenly blasted to pieces by a stream of dark blue energy from the Cube God; immediately he darted out of the way as the tree collapsed to the ground. Eilin was now open to the sight of the Cube God, and all of its minions turned around and began shooting at him: the blue and yellow cubes with their circular shots; the large orange ones with fireballs and streams of golden-yellow energy. He quickly retaliated by sending a wave of arrows (from his Verdant Bow) back towards the cubes, but against such a massive swarm of enemies, his attacks did little damage; and he turned around and began to run. In an attempt to save Eilin's life, Kira stepped forward and cast the Magic Nova spell, destroying several of the cubes with a comet-shaped ball of energy; in doing this, however, she had captured the attention of the Cube God.

"Kira! Run!" Eilin yelled; and the wizard turned around and darted away just in time before the Cube God attacked. She ran westwards, away from Eilin, and the Cube Minions began to give chase; Eilin quickly followed after them, shooting arrow after arrow at the monsters in an attempt to divert their attention. He was stopped dead, however, when the Cube God suddenly charged right in front of his path, completely blocking him off from reaching Kira. Eilin immediately ducked and fell flat to the ground as a blast of powerful magic flew above his head, incinerating a nearby tree; he then rolled out of the way to avoid being struck by another one of the God's deadly attacks.

 _Damn it! I can't take on this Cube God all by myself!_

"Eilin!" To his surprise, Kira suddenly came running back towards him from behind some nearby trees, and she blasted the Cube God with another Magic Nova spell. The creature seemed to retreat a bit, as if it was backing away in pain; it meant that the Cube God must have already been hurt quite badly (probably from its previous battle) and had only a bit of strength left to continue fighting.

Eilin turned around and ran towards Kira, who was still being chased by a few dozen smaller cubes; but in the split-second that he appeared in front of the Cube God (while he darted across the fallen trees), he was suddenly struck by a powerful blast of dark lightning; and Eilin fell to the ground, grasping his shoulder in pain.

"No!"

Kira lunged at the Cube God and blasted the creature with another Magic Nova spell, causing it to retreat again for a few seconds. Then she ran towards Eilin and knelt down on the charred ground beside him, quickly giving her friend a healing potion.

"What are you doing! Get out of here!" Eilin yelled.

"No! I won't leave you behind. I promised tha—" Before Kira could finish her sentence, a bolt of energy (from the Cube God) struck Kira in her face, and she was thrown to the ground; blood poured from her nose and mouth.

"Kira!"

The wizard stood up, and — to Eilin's amazement — charged straight towards the Cube God, blasting the creature with several bursts of energy from her staff; once again, the monster retreated a little.

"KIRA!"

Now the wizard boldly stood right in front of the Cube God: her staff was pointed forward, ready to inflict the penultimate blow upon her enemy. And even as Kira was struck straight through the chest by the creature's fatal attack, she still managed to cast her final spell: the Magic Nova collided with the Cube God, and the creature exploded into a stream of bursting lights before disintegrating into ashes. As for Kira, her body was nearly blown open by the Cube God's dark lightning; and she fell limp to the ground.

Eilin dashed towards his friend; he grabbed Kira's body and quickly carried her away from the other cubes, and then laid her down to rest once they were in a safe spot.

Kira's face was pale, and her clothes were soaked through with blood, which also poured ceaselessly out of her mouth; her chest was almost a large, gaping hole where the Cube God's lightning had struck. Eilin laid a shaking hand upon Kira's forehead.

"Kira…I'm sorry…"

"It's…alright, Eilin," the girl responded; and her voice sounded weak and lifeless.

"No…this is my fault." Eilin took Kira's hand and grasped it with his own; he closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "You didn't have to sacrifice yourself…just to save me. You should've escaped…"

"I couldn't do that…" Kira said feebly. "I promised that I would protect my friends."

The girl looked up at Eilin and tried to smile. "There was someone…a person who was very dear to me, who I had once selfishly left behind to die."

My brother…

"I'm happy…as long as all my friends are alright." Kira closed her eyes, and never opened them again.

* * *

Everyone had witnessed the spectacular destruction of the Cube God; and now they were running around the forest, searching everywhere for its loot. Claire managed to find an attack pot, and, in a small clearing — where the Cube God had died — retrieved a Hippogriff Armor. Meanwhile, Aaron found for himself a wisdom pot; then the two began searching for their friends.

They were devastated when they saw Eilin walking towards them, carrying Kira's dead body in his arms.

"No!" Claire yelled as she ran towards the archer; she looked at Kira and gasped when she saw the fatal wound that had been inflicted upon her chest.

"I'm sorry…" Eilin whispered. "I…couldn't protect her…from the Cube God."

He laid Kira's body down onto the ground; Claire and Aaron knelt over her: their faces were an expression of shock and despair.

"Kira…" Claire whispered, and she buried her face in her hands and sighed heavily; Aaron said nothing, but simply stared sadly at his fallen friend.

None of them said anything for a while.

Then, after about a minute of silence, Claire picked Kira's body up, and, without a word, went to carry her out of the forest. Aaron and Eilin followed quietly after her; neither could think of a single comforting thing to say.


	12. ROTMG TRILOGY:NOVEL XII

**RotMG Novel: Chapter XII**

 _Death. It's all around us, and affects everyone at one point in their lives; we can't do anything about it. Death is, and has always been, inevitable._

 _I've become rather attached to my friends, but I know, too, that they will die one day. The question isn't IF it will happen, but rather, how soon it will happen._

 _It could be tomorrow. It could be a week from now, or a month, or even years._

 _I might even die first before any of them. We all live in fear of death; it is, after all, an inescapable fate — the unstoppable part of our destinies. All things live ONLY to die, and that's the way it's always been: the unchangeable irony of our existence._

About a week had passed, and now everyone was preparing for the impending battle with Oryx; an encounter with the Mad God had always been a widely anticipated event in the Realm. At the nexus, hundreds of travelers were gathering together to await the day Oryx would appear to take them all into his chamber for a climactic battle. Usually, it happened about ten days after all his minions were slain; this was so that everyone had time to assemble together in the Nexus town, even if they were located on the other side of the world.

It took Claire's party about a week to journey from the northern regions of the Realm back to Nexus; along the way, they stopped at the town of Colberth to bury Kira's body, and Claire had laid the Yague flowers (which she picked from the Blue Woods) over her grave.

At Nexus, the party stayed for a few days at the local inn; during this time Claire did not bother to go talk to Kathleen again, for she no longer cared what the woman had to say. On the day that Oryx would appear, the group gathered at the town square — in the garden-area, near the map of the Realm — to await the arrival of the Mad God; Claire stood upon a small bridge suspended over a lotus pond (nearby a fountain).

"It's funny how things work out sometimes," Claire said. "This was where my journey began: at the Nexus town square, and now, it's where my journey is going to end."

Aaron threw Claire a strange look. "Don't say that," he replied. "Your journey's not going to 'end' here, is it?"

"No…that's not what I meant. I just feel that…after this, after my encounter with Oryx, I just don't want to go on anymore journeys."

Aaron nodded. "I know. Our past two months have been quite stressful, and we've lost a couple of friends in all the battles that we've fought."

"I think I've seen too much of this Realm," Claire said. "Before, my goal was to find the Mad God so that I could talk to him and learn about my past." She shook her sighed. "But now…I just don't care anymore: I've survived long enough in this Realm to acquire a new identity for myself."

"So what are you going to do, now?" Aaron asked.

"I suppose I'll go and fight Oryx to bring an 'end' to my journey. If it's possible, then I will try to speak with him, to see if I can learn anything about these 'answers' that Kathleen told me about earlier."

"Doesn't seem like it. Everyone here looks like they're in a killing mood; and Oryx himself probably isn't interested in any civil discussion," Aaron responded.

"I know."

They did not say anything for a while; then, at around noon, it began.

The skies darkened, and there was a booming clap of thunder in the distance, followed by several flashes of lightning. To Claire's surprise, it began to rain — for the first time ever — inside the Realm; which only happened on the day that Oryx appeared. Claire let the water fall upon her head and soak through her clothes, drenching her entire body; she did not care, however, for the rain felt (surprisingly) relieving to her.

Then, there came the voice of the Mad God, above all the other noise:

"My minions have failed me! But now, you shall feel my wrath — your doom awaits in my chamber!"

And a bolt of lightning struck the center of the town square, where the Realm's map was located; instantly it transformed into a swirling blue portal, much like the entrance into Sprite World; but it looked darker and grimmer.

To Claire's surprise, it was not with fear that everyone greeted this occurrence: they all cheered and charged into the portal, as if consumed by a great battle-fervor. Claire, Aaron, and Eilin each followed in nervously after them, awaiting whatever fate they would be confronted with inside Oryx's chamber.

* * *

Claire opened her eyes to find herself standing inside a long and dark hallway, with a tall, arched ceiling over her head; the floor and walls were made of a blue stone. She was surrounded by about fifteen people, who had also come into the room through the portal; to her surprise, however, neither Aaron and Eilin were amongst them. Up ahead stood a tall, armored red figure with glowing yellow eyes: it was larger than any human and wielded a massive broadsword.

"Aaron? Where are you?" Claire asked as she shoved her way through the crowd. "Eilin!?" No one seemed to care; for suddenly they began charging towards the other end of the hallway, and everyone drew out their weapons. The armored red figure lifted up his sword and unleashed a wave of streaming yellow energy towards the party; a knight stood at the front of the group to take the creature's attack head-on, and he hardly suffered any damage. In retaliation, a wave of arrows and barrage were sent back towards the monster, and his armor was shattered into pieces; then the knight lunged forward and plunged his sword straight through the creature's chest, and it fell crumbling to the ground.

"What was that?" Claire asked a nearby Paladin. "The monster that we just fought, I mean."

"Oryx's minions," the Paladin responded. "The Mad God has a whole entourage of them guarding him."

The group charged out of the hallway and into a massive circular room that was nearly a kilometer wide in diameter; it was surrounded by eight different entrances that all led into this chamber from passages similar to the one Claire had just passed through. The center of this room was surrounded by a ring of seven colossal stone pillars made to resemble an arena; fallen debris (from previous battles) littered the chamber everywhere.

As Claire exited out of the hallway, she suddenly noticed something glowing upon the walls beside her: they were effulgent blue letters that hung transparently in the air, and together formed a few words; even some sentences which spelled out a peculiar message:

 _You are a child of this realm.  
Eternally blinded by ignorant truths,  
Oblivious to the peripheral existence  
Untold from this dreamless cycle._

 _…_ _What!?_ Claire thought, and she turned around to see if there was anybody that she could ask, but currently not a single person stood beside her; they were all too busy fighting the Mad God and his minions at the moment.

And behold! There he was: a giant knight dressed in black armor, with two enigmatic red eyes glowing out from his bull-horned helmet; in his right hand Oryx wielded a massive, eight-foot long sword. He did not actually look as menacing as Claire had imagined him to be; after seeing absurd fantastical creatures (such as the Skull Shrine or the Cube God) on her journey through the Realm, she had really expected Oryx to look a bit more…mythical.

 _Alright, this is it,_ Claire thought. _My encounter with the Mad God will be the final battle of my journey. This is where it all ends…I hope._

The battle was currently taking place upon the edges of the arena surrounding Oryx, where the seven massive stone pillars were located. Claire joined with a group of people who were attacking the enemy from the south, using two of the pillars as a defense mechanism which they could hide behind.

As always, all the melee attackers were at the front — paladins, knights, and warriors — while behind them, the long-ranged wizards and archers aided in the offensive; they seemed to be using a hit-and-run tactic, in which a group of people would come out and attack the minions, then quickly retreat back behind the pillars — and then another group would arrive to continue the assault. In the meantime, a priest would be going around healing those in the first offensive that had been wounded; and when they had all recovered, the groups would switch around again.

The reason for this was because of the sheer quantity of enemies that the party had to fight. Unlike the battles that took place out in the Realm — the Gods of Amerdoth or the Snow Plains came to mind — there was literally no diversity in the range of enemies that the party fought here; it was just Oryx's minions, who (together in large groups) were an extremely formidable opponent. With about thirty of them guarding Oryx, no one single person could take them all on alone — for as soon as they stepped out from behind the pillars, they would be bombarded with dozens of powerful streams of magic, which (due to their sheer quantity) were nearly impossible to evade.

Thus, the hit-and-run strategy was adopted for two reasons: firstly it was because Oryx's minions themselves hardly moved (they always stood guard in front of the Mad God); secondly because no direct assault upon their enemies was possible without a constant switching of groups in order to replace those who had been wounded (or were too tired to continue fighting).

In such a way this battle was fought: one of sheer attrition, and after about an hour or so, the party managed to break through the first of Oryx's many lines of defense. Once enough of his minions had fallen, all the groups charged forward (past the pillars) to engage battle within the inner 'ring' of the arena, where they were closed to the Mad God. Here, due to the lack of protection (from a defense mechanism), all chaos broke out, and the entire party resorted to becoming a hive mind in order to withstand their opponent's powerful attack. Bodies were constantly being shuffled back and forth (amongst the group) in order to shield those who had been wounded; with no particular tactics in mind, the battle became decided purely through Brute force.

Of particular annoyance was the 'Green Star' spell which the Minions of Oryx used to slow down their enemies; in many cases, this led to one's death, for they had wandered too close to the monsters and could not escape back to the group in time. Due to this, many of the melee fighters became too afraid to meet their enemy in an upfront duel; and thus the party began to rely on ranged attacks (mostly arrows and magic) in order to take down the Mad God's Minions. The only exception to this were the Rogues, who were fast and stealthy enough to approach their enemies (and attack them, of course) up close. Claire stayed mostly at the back of the group, but she made herself occasionally useful by helping the archers shoot at Oryx's minions if she saw some passage for her arrows.

And then, of course, there was the Mad God himself, who did not show any reluctance in flaunting his immense power. To step within range of his massive weapon (and that was only if you got past all his minions, first) was to look upon the face of death itself; it was impossible to engage in a sword duel with him due to the God's superior strength and size. Furthermore, his magic was far more powerful than his minions'; he attacked by sending wave after wave of 'status' stars at the party, which included Blind, Slow, Confusion, "Quiet" — particularly agonizing to Priests, for it prevented them from casting any spells — as well as a red armor-shattering spell. Anyone who was struck by more than two of these statuses at once were basically considered dead, unless they were immediately healed afterwards; and indeed, this battle was not discreet in its number of casualties, for soon bodies began to pile up in front of the Mad God's minions.

Finally there came another breakthrough in the battle, when about half of Oryx's minions had fallen and the party was able to advance far enough to get within shooting range of the Mad God. Claire quickly parted from the rest of her group as she charged towards her enemy, meaning to unleash her wrath upon them: more specifically, Oryx himself. She was filled with a sudden blood lust, the same urge that she had felt countless times before in battle — killing (for her) was no longer even associated with thoughts of discretion. Now that Claire was face-to-face with the mad God, it was her chance to shine, her chance to enact glory and to accomplish her revenge against her ultimate enemy; to make Oryx pay for all the suffering he had put her through ever since he brought her into this Realm.

No, she did not care about "asking questions" anymore.

 _You bastard,_ Claire thought as she charged towards the Mad God. _You've made me suffer so much; this is for all my friends: Aaron, Kira, Elliot, and Eilin!_

And she unleashed a wave of arrows straight towards the Mad God's face.

Oryx turned around and raised his sword; and at that moment, Claire knew that she was in deep trouble.

 _Uh-oh. What was I thinking!?_

The Mad God swung his sword forward, and out came a streaming yellow wave of energy; Claire quickly turned around and began to run, but she was not fast enough.

"Foolish mortals!" Oryx yelled. "You are all as peasants before me!" and tThen Oryx raised his hand up into the air and threw five status-stars at Claire, all of which struck her and caused the Huntress to fall tumbling to the ground; Blinded, Confused, Silenced, Slowed, and her armor broken.

She expected the hammer of death to strike her at any second now, there would come the sword, or the spell, or whatever; and her body would be rent into pieces, and then she would die, just like her friends: Kira and Elliot.

But it did not.

Claire opened her eyes and saw that she was still running for some reason, despite the fact that she was Blinded and could not see a single thing; also confused, as well as slowed. But she was steadily heading away from her enemies; in fact she had made it as far back as the pillars that surrounded the arena, where it was safe (since none of Oryx's minions approached that place).

 _I can't believe it. I'm still…alive?_

Claire let her body collapse to the ground, and she quickly took out a Healing Potion to help stop her bleeding.

* * *

Aaron was with the group that fought Oryx from the northern side of the Arena; it was slightly smaller than Claire's party, but fortunately they were not attacked by as many of the Mad God's minions. Being one of the few clerics in this group, Aaron spent most of his time healing; it became a tiring job after a while, for people seemed to get wounded every few seconds or so (due to the fact that their enemies were extremely powerful) — but fortunately, he was spared of any damage himself since Aaron did not have to attack and spent most of his time at the back of the party.

Meanwhile, Eilin took advantage of the greater amount of open space that he had on this side of the battlefield to aid in the offensive against Oryx. Since the Mad God was surrounded by so many minions, only the archers (and other long-ranged attackers) stood a chance of hitting him with their arrows; the damage at this point, however, was miniscule: only a small portion of their attacks actually managed to strike Oryx.

Nevertheless, the Mad God's strength was still slowly being whittled down as the battle progressed; his (seemingly impenetrable) armor gave him a considerable amount of defense, and Oryx's vitality was enormous: he did not seem to care about the countless arrows that had been stuck to his armor, and none of the blasts of magic made the Mad God even flinch.

Aaron turned around and saw a warrior attempting to run away from one of Oryx's minions; the person's right leg was broken and his chest was also bleeding quite badly. Aaron quickly ran towards this warrior (to try and heal him), but before he was able to reach him, the person was struck down by a blast of streaming yellow magic from a nearby Minion; with a gasp of pain, the warrior fell dead to the ground.

 _Dammit!_ Aaron thought, and he was suddenly struck by a pang of guilt; this was amongst many of the people he had seen die (before his very eyes) today. _Poor guy. If only I could've saved him…_

Aaron turned towards the Minion of Oryx and aimed his weapon at the creature, blasting it with a stream of golden-orange energy from his Sprite Wand. The monster retaliated by throwing a green star at him; Aaron quickly ducked, but he was struck afterwards by a wave of powerful yellow magic from the Minion, and he immediately retreated back to the safety of his group. Then the creature charged towards Aaron with his sword, but it was suddenly killed by a wave of arrows that pierced through its armor; as the monster's body crashed to the ground, it revealed Eilin standing behind him.

"Thanks, Eilin!" Aaron called out to his friend; the archer quickly turned away and went back to the business of attacking Oryx.

Aaron hurried back to his group, where a group of people were waiting to be healed; the boy quickly cast another spell from his Tome, and a wave of magic descended upon everyone, curing them of their wounds. Then another assault was mounted upon the Mad God's minions, and the air was filled with a barrage of arrows and magic; they had only about three more minions to defeat before the party would gain another few steps (of distance) upon Oryx's territory. In the south, Aaron suddenly saw Claire rushing towards the Mad God, firing arrow after arrow at him in a relentless assault; he could see no more of her after that, however — when two more minions arrived to confront the party, and they blocked his view.

 _So that's where she's been! I was wondering if Claire even made it to this battle at all,_ Aaron thought. _Well, I hope that she's okay right now. I want all of us — me, Eilin, and Claire — to make it out of this battle alive!_

There was suddenly an uproarious cheering from the south as the other group appeared to gain another few meters upon their enemy's territory. Five minions fell to the ground, slain by an entourage of swords, arrows, and magic; then a Paladin cast a heal spell, rejuvenating everyone, and the entire group charged forward through the newly-gained breach in the Mad God's defenses. There was no doubt about it, now: it was the group in the south that would reach Oryx first, and not the one that Aaron was currently with; this meant that they would have a higher chance of acquiring the Mad God's loot, too, once they had won the battle.

 _I suppose there's not much use staying in this party,_ Aaron thought, and he began looking for a way he could reach the group in the south. Currently, his path was blocked by several minions, and indeed, about fifteen or so still surrounded the Mad God's arena. _If I wanted to depart from this group, I would have to head all the way around the pillars…and furthermore, I don't want to leave anyone behind who's in need of healing._ Aaron sighed, and decided to wait a bit longer before making a decision.

"Impotent cretins!" Oryx suddenly yelled; he raised his sword up in the air and a bolt of lightning flew down towards him. "You pathetic mortals will never destroy me!" Oryx then plunged his sword into the ground, and the electricity metamorphosed into the forms of three more minions, who immediately formed a triangle of defense around him.

This halted the group's attack in the south long enough for the party north of Oryx to launch another assault upon the Mad God's minions. Aaron's group charged forward, and they began firing a barrage of arrows and magic upon the monsters surrounding Oryx; three Paladins decided to risk a melee offensive and began striking at the Minions with their swords. But then Oryx turned around and he unleashed a massive wave of streaming yellow magic towards the party, and one of the Paladins fell; the group was forced to retreat shamefully once again before they became overwhelmed by the monsters' attacks.

 _Damn it! Will we ever gain an advantage over our enemies in this battle!?_ Aaron thought.

He turned around and suddenly witnessed Eilin running towards the monsters, until he stood nearly face-to-face with one of Oryx's minions. The archer fired a few arrows at the Minion at almost point blank range, before he was forced to retreat after being struck by a slow spell. But, to Aaron's horror, he saw that Eilin had approached too close to the Mad God, and Oryx had noticed him; the Mad God turned around and launched a wave of yellow bolts towards the archer, and Eilin was struck terribly by the enemy's attack. It did not stop there, however; for Oryx followed up by throwing out three status stars at Eilin, and he was struck simultaneously by Blind, Confuse, and Armor Break. Unable to see and with a complete loss of direction, Eilin did the worst thing possible — he wandered even closer to Oryx, and received a slash across his legs from the Mad God's sword.

 _NO!_

Aaron dashed towards Eilin and ignored everything that struck him along the way; nothing mattered to him now but his friend's life. When he reached the archer, Aaron jumped upon Eilin and threw him to the ground; then he grabbed his friend and shielded him with his own body.

From behind him, Oryx swung his sword and slashed Aaron across the back; the boy cried out in pain as he felt the weapon cut him nearly to his bone. Then the Mad God slashed again, and blood flew into the air; Aaron hugged his friend closely and even tighter now as he tried to withstand the pain. The third time, Oryx's sword nearly tore Aaron's body apart, but an arrow — which had struck the Mad God upon his shoulder — made the God miss his target, and he only managed to slash the boy's arm.

"Get out of there, Aaron!" A voice in the distance yelled.

 _Is that…Claire's voice!?_ Aaron stood up — the pain was almost unbearable for him — and grabbed Eilin's body; gritting his teeth, he made one final burst of effort to sprint out of harm's way, back through all of Oryx's minions — until he found himself standing behind one of the pillars surrounding the arena, where he was safe.

Aaron collapsed to the ground; he quickly lay Eilin down beside him, and then began checking the boy's wounds: Eilin had been slashed from his shoulder to his chest, but fortunately the cut was not too deep. A worse injury was upon his legs, for his knees had been stabbed and were now broken; Aaron immediately took out his tome and quickly cast a spell to heal his friend, as well as his (own) bleeding back. But unlike any normal wound, cuts that had been sustained deeply — such as to the bone — could not be healed instantly by a spell, and would have to follow its natural course in order to recover.

Eilin's eyes were only half-open and he seemed barely conscious; the boy looked up faintly at Aaron and tried to speak. "Am I…still alive?" He asked in a coarse voice.

Aaron nodded in response. "Yes. I got you out of there as quickly as possible."

"Why…why did you help me?"

"I couldn't just leave you there to die, in front of Oryx, could I?"

"You…shouldn't have." Eilin tried to shake his head, but found that he could hardly move; the pain was still overwhelming him. "Kira did the same for me, when we fought the Cube God…"

"That's because we're both your friends. You saved my life twice before; of course, I'm indebted to you, so I had to repay the favour."

Eilin sighed. "I can't believe what you just did." He looked up at Aaron and tried to open up his eyes. "You…you protected me from Oryx with your own body."

Aaron nodded. "Don't worry, I'll be alright. It's you that I'm worried about."

"Will I…will I live?" Eilin asked.

"I hope so." He reached out towards his friend and gave him a hug. "I won't let you die. I promise."

Eilin turned his gaze away from Aaron and looked down tiredly at the ground. "I'm…sorry."

"I don't care," Aaron replied. "I'm just happy to know that you're safe."

"…Thank you."

There was a silence between them for about a minute or so; then Aaron noticed that his friend was about to fall unconscious. He slowly reached out towards Eilin's face and laid a hand over his forehead, brushing a few strands of hair out of the way; then he moved his hand down and closed them over the boy's eyes, to let him rest.

* * *

There was an explosion in the distance, followed by a monstrous cry of pain. Then the Mad God sank to the ground as his armor disintegrated into ashes, and his body burst into a stream of vanishing light.

"NO! You pathetic mortals! I…shall…retur…n…!"

Everyone began rushing the Mad God for his loot, and Claire was no exception; but she missed all of it, or at least all of the good equipment, due to the fact that she had stayed mostly at the back of the group during the battle. A brown portal appeared over the location where Oryx had fallen; it would take them back into the Realm. Many people were pouring into the portal right now — after they had all inspected the loot, of course — and they were all cheering greatly at their recent victory over the battle with the Mad God.

Claire did not want to leave just yet.

She noticed Aaron amongst the crowd, and approached him; to her dismay she saw that he was carrying an unconscious Eilin upon his back.

"Oh, Aaron!" Claire yelled. "What happened? Is Eilin alright?'

Aaron nodded. "I think he'll live. Let's get out of here and see if there's an infirmary in Nexus where we can get him some rest."

Claire shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't come with you just yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, what do you think happens now?"

"I believe once everyone returns to the Nexus, the Mad God revives and the 'cycle' begins anew inside the Realm," Aaron replied. "Unfortunately, we can't do anything about it."

"That's just it!" Claire said. "Oryx isn't dead; I think he's still in here, inside this chamber somewhere."

Aaron gave Claire a strange look. "No one's ever tried to find the Mad God after they kill him," he said. "I'd just leave this place, if I were you."

Claire sighed. "I have to stay," she said. "Kathleen told me, about a month ago, that he would have the 'answers' that I need. Well…I'm not exactly sure what she was talking about, but I feel like I have to stay."

"I don't think you'll find anything. Well, I'll be going now, since I need to help Eilin. I guess I'll see you later!" And Aaron departed into the portal.

Claire waited until everyone was gone; when she was completely alone inside Oryx's chamber, she decided to return to the hallway where she was at earlier, to check upon something that had been bugging her mind ever since she saw it.

But the words were no longer the same; they still floated in the air (as before), but now they were red in colour instead of blue. More importantly, the words spelt out a completely different message:

 _You who tread upon this ephemeral plane,  
Ever seduced by material illusion and false sights;  
Like a newborn child, unwary and ignorant,  
Who cries to assure its fleeting existence._

Claire nearly jumped back in utter shock and surprise when she realized that she was not reading these words; rather, the words were speaking to her, as if their message was being transmitted directly into her thoughts.

And the voice of these words was that of the Mad God's.

"Why do you stay here, in my chamber?" asked Oryx; his voice seemed to come from nowhere and yet everywhere at the same time, and it resonated throughout the entire room. Claire noticed a strange shadow with no definite shape or form (seemingly) appearing beside her.

"Oryx!" Claire yelled. "I've come to speak to you at last."

"…You are confused, I see. Troubled. Ignorant. Ever thirsty for knowledge…ever so humanly curious."

"What are you talking about!?" Claire asked.

The shadows surrounding her seemed to grow longer. "You come to me in search of knowledge. You wish to learn more about this Realm, as well as about yourself; though you have already created a new identity for yourself, you still seek to retrieve your past and your memories."

"How did you know that!?" Claire demanded.

"…There is nothing outside my range of knowledge inside this Realm."

"Wait! First, let me ask you something," Claire said. "Didn't we just kill you less than ten minutes ago? Why are you still living right now — why do you always come back every time you die, as everyone in this Realm claims?"

The air was strangely silent. Then, the Mad God responded:

"You did not kill me; no one did. In fact, you were not even fighting me; you were fighting an illusion of myself."

"WHAT!?"

"It is foolish to assume that what you perceive through sight is always real," Oryx said. "You shall know that I am not the master, or even the creator of this Realm. I am the Realm."

"…They do not call me the Mad God without reason. I acknowledge my insanity in what I have done, but I regret none of it."

"In the distant past, I sealed myself in eternal sleep for a reason that I cannot remember. In my dreams, I crafted a world from my pure imaginings; I forged every corner, every detail, everything significant and insignificant thing about it. And I inhabited this world as an illusion of my past self, a remnant of my former identity."

"In my solitude, I realized — one day, in my wanderings — that this world was not real. But I did not wish to wake up from this dream, for I have worked too hard crafting it, and it was too perfect. I wanted to make it real."

"…Is there really any difference between dream and reality? In either, you are unaware of the fact that you may be asleep, and that you can awaken into another more conscious existence."

"If a single mind believes in something, it is insignificant, and cannot be proven true. A collective consciousness, however — who all believe in the same thing — would make the belief true, no matter how false it seems."

"Thus, I stole others from their dreams — others, such as you — and when they awoke in this world, they too, believed that their dream was real; for I had crafted it so masterfully it is almost indistinguishable from reality. And when more and more people entered my dream, the stronger their combined faith became, until even I myself was convinced that his world was real. And who is to say that it isn't!?"

Claire did not know how exactly to respond to this. _A dream!? All this world…it's just a DREAM!?_

"And behold!" Oryx roared. "The Realm of the Mad God — a world created from the perfect unity of combined faith into a collective consciousness: proof that reality is a lie! For I have shown the ultimate example of how falsehoods can be rendered into absolute, undeniable truth!"

"You're mad," Claire said, ignoring the irony. "Completely mad. This world is not a dream. I have felt pain, and emotions, and everything else that I know is real. You're lying! What you're telling me is preposterous!"

The shadows around the room grew again.

" You are afraid…" Oryx said. "Troubled. Ignorant. Ever thirsty for knowledge…ever so humanly _curious._ "

"Stop it! What are you talking about!?"

And then Claire suddenly felt her mind being overwhelmed by a completely alien force; it was so overpowering that she instantly lost control over her entire body.

"I am the Realm," Oryx said. "No more, no less. When we are in dreams we are usually only a little aware of our identity, which is why you hardly remember anything of your past life." He cackled insanely. "These memories trouble you, don't they? They fill you with doubt, and of false hope; you believe that there may be a way to escape this Realm."

Stop…controlling…my mind!

"Allow me to liberate you from doubt. I will destroy all that remains of your memories, until you believe that there is nothing beyond this Realm; nothing that could ever give evidence of your past life. You will believe in only this Realm, for ignorance is the ultimate bliss."

And then Claire lost full control of her body, while Oryx entered inside her mind completely and began altering her. She could no longer think, and resistance was out of the question; for about an entire minute she and Oryx became one, and she felt the vastness of the Mad God's mind; and saw that he was, indeed, truly the Realm, for she sensed all of the Realm at once, and yet nothing of it at the same time.

The Mad God's power was not something she even tried to comprehend. It was far beyond physical power, even that of mental; for when that mind was not a singular entity but an actual world, it could not even be practical to understand.

She became unaware of time as it passed by, and the total length of her brainwashing could've been mere seconds, or minutes or even entire hours. All Claire knew was that she had no control of anything, not even basic thought, until Oryx was complete.

Once the Mad God finally left her mind, Claire regained control of herself and no longer perceived such vast power, and became separated from the rest of the Realm. She tried to remember her past life, but could not recall anything past the moment she woke up in Kathleen's house about two months ago. Beyond that was an empty void; a period of nonexistence that was completely alien to her, and she thought nothing of it.

Nothing, except for absolute anger.

"ORYX!" Claire yelled. "What did you do to me? What did you do!?"

"You are angry."

"I can't remember anything! Who am I? What is my identity!?"

"Let the hatred consume you."

"SHUT UP! Come out here right now, and let me kill you!"

"You wish to destroy me?"

"YES! I will stop at nothing to bring you to your end!"

"…You understand now why I purposefully create an illusion of myself for the people of this Realm to fight. For their common hatred is a shared belief, and this belief only makes their faith in this world stronger."

"ORYX! YOU WILL DIE BY MY HANDS!"

"You had your chance; next time. Now, return to the Realm!"

All of the shadows disappeared, and Claire collapsed to the ground. _No…don't go! Come back, Oryx! Come back, and let me kill you!_

She was frustrated and angry beyond belief, and continued to remain angry for several minutes or so; simply screaming at the top of her lungs, cursing at Oryx, while beating at the floor with her fists to release all her anger. When she finally calmed down, she realized that Oryx was not going to come back; he had left and was returning to the Realm to begin anew the cycle of his existence.

The endless cycle of this Realm.

Claire suddenly thought of her friends, of Kira and Elliot — those who had passed — as well as Eilin and Aaron, who were now the only people that she treasured in this world, and all the anger left her; they were now her only memory, since everything else about her past had been eradicated. She longed to see them again.

* * *

It took a while for Claire to find the infirmary; and she had bought some gifts, too, for her friends, while she was exploring around Nexus. There was a souvenir shop near the town square, and a florist worked there (much to her surprise) who sold various bouquets.

Claire was delighted to see her friends again when she entered their room; there was Aaron, lying upon a bed in a white dress shirt, and he had bandages around his waist and shoulders; nearby, Eilin sat in a chair, and he wore a purple-and-gray sweater and had bandages upon his legs.

"Hello, Claire!" Aaron exclaimed when he saw her enter the room. "You were gone for almost a full day!"

"I was?" Claire asked, sounding surprised.

Aaron nodded. "What happened? Did you manage to find Oryx and speak to him?"

Claire sighed. "No, there was nothing in the chamber," she lied. "I guess I must've passed out or something, which was why it took me a whole day to return to this Realm."

Aaron nodded. "That's strange. Well, it's nice to have you back," he said. "Eilin and I are both fine, though we'll have to rest for a few weeks or so before we can go on another journey again."

"Well, what's been going on this Realm since I'm gone?"

"With Oryx back, everyone's out on their own adventures again, hunting down his minions and waiting for some of his Master Gods to arrive."

"Let's lay off on the battles for a while, okay?" Claire suggested. "I'll hunt loot for you in the meantime, so that I can buy us some food."

"That'd be great!" Aaron exclaimed. "Thanks a lot, Claire."

The Huntress nodded. "I have some gifts for you, too!" She went to Aaron and gave him a bouquet of roses.

"Flowers? That seems a bit out of the ordinary in this Realm," Aaron said.

"They're quite beautiful, though." She leaned in towards Aaron and suddenly said, "By the way, I think I know your 'secret.' You love Eilin, don't you?"

At this, a look of shock suddenly came over Aaron's face, and he immediately turned red. "Umm, you don't mind, do you?"

"I don't care. Love must be a wonderful thing to feel; I'm happy for you."

"Just keep this a secret, okay!? It's embarrassing."

Claire nodded, and then she approached Eilin, and gave him a bouquet of white, yellow, and pink chrysanthemums.

"It's just a gift," Claire said when Eilin gave her a strange look. "Flowers are pretty, aren't they?"

"I guess so…"

"Anyways, I'm glad that you're alright, Eilin. You really have to thank Aaron for protecting you, don't you think?"

Eilin nodded and smiled shyly at Claire. "Yeah, I'm grateful for him."

Claire then prepared to leave, and as she exited the room, she turned around to say goodbye to her friends. "Stay close, you two!" She said. "I'll be back at around evening time today."

Aaron waved back to her; and Claire noticed, for the first time, that Eilin was actually smiling happily.

As she left the room, Claire realized that Oryx was right. It was her belief in her friends that made her life worth living, not the identity she perceived from the memories of her past.

 **The End**


End file.
